


The Umbrella Tent

by pinstripedJackalope



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Holes (2003) Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Autistic Vanya Hargreeves, Blood, Blood and Violence, Bullying, Dissociation, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, F/F, Flashbacks, Found Family, Gossip, Gun Violence, Guns, Heat Stroke, Hurt/Comfort, I'm including as many of the TV characters as possible so forgive me if i don't tag them all, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Introspection, Kid Lila Pitts, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, M/M, No Incest, Not Onscreen, POV Multiple, Pansexual Klaus Hargreeves, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Shock, Social Worker Eudora Patch, Suicide Attempt, Team as Family, Teen Crush, Trans Ben Hargreeves, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Underage Drug Use, Vomiting, and also i'm skipping over most of the romance, it's just mentioned, like we're going lowkey with the romance here, literally none of them are related, meltdowns, she's like ten, there we go, they're all kids and they're all delinquents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26427865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope
Summary: On October first, twenty-nineteen—six months after the camp's mysterious closure—Camp Green Lake re-opens its doors to forty-three new (and old) campers.  This is all well and good, if not for the fact that there is something... fishy... going on behind the scenes.  Follow Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, [Redacted], Ben, and Vanya as they try to navigate the harsh desert, political machinations, and the depths of their own psyches to survive their sentences at Camp Green Lake.  It's a hard knock life for a bunch of delinquent kids, but perhaps they'll find some family in each other along the way.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Everyone, Ben Hargreeves & Everyone, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Everyone, Diego Hargreeves & Lila Pitts, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Luther Hargreeves & Everyone, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone, Sissy Cooper/Vanya Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves & Everyone
Comments: 44
Kudos: 91





	1. Spaceboy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crumpetz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crumpetz/gifts).



> I forgot to put an author's note so I'm doing that now, OTL. All I want to say is that once upon a time, I wrote a BNHA Holes fusion. This in turn inspired my dear friend @crumpetz to come up with the idea of a TUA Holes fusion, which they then shared with me. With their permission, I've taken their ideas and turned them into a full-fledged fic! I owe my life to crumpetz and I love them a lot. Thank you, love, for your brilliant mind!
> 
> Cheers, everybody!

Luther doesn’t remember the fight that got him in trouble. 

He didn’t hit his head and lose his memory or anything like that. It’s just that when you do the same things over and over again they become mundane. Even violent things, things you aren’t proud of, can start to blend all together once you do them often enough. Bloody knuckles, wild eyes, the taste of copper behind bared teeth… yeah. Things like that.

Luther doesn’t know why he didn’t stop punching when Jack told him that the teachers were coming. He doesn’t know why he didn’t listen. He should have listened—he always listened to Jack—but that time he didn’t, and the next thing he knew he was being tackled by the security guard. 

He thinks, sometimes, about the fact that he didn’t know how to keep his chin up until Jack came around. He was always trying to be smaller, always trying to shrink himself down—his father walked out when he was a baby and his mother worked three jobs and it was like even the people that were meant to love him didn’t give a shit. And then… then came Jack. A year above him, all charm and power and charisma… and he _looked_ at Luther. He taught him to straighten his back and grit his jaw. He showed Luther how to be a man, and if Luther had to rough up a few kids to keep in his good graces, well… you can get used to anything.

Then the last fight happened, and Luther didn’t listen, and he can still see the disgust in Jack’s eyes as he backed away just before security came round the corner. Luther barely remembers recounting the incident to the principal, hunched down in his chair like he was trying to disappear as he told her that it was Jack’s idea, that it was Jack’s order. Jack, with his expensive button-down shirts and his slicked black hair. Jack, with his hundred-dollar cologne and his charming smile.

They were both expelled that day. Jack got private school. And Luther? Well.

Luther got Camp Green Lake.

***

Luther arrives at the bus stop in front of the juvie facility early Monday morning on the first of October, the day that Camp Green Lake is to be (re)opened. He has nothing with him but a backpack full of underwear and a few books, which he hitches up his shoulder as he takes in the kid already sitting at the bench, waiting. The kid looks up as Luther comes closer, blue eyes sharp, calculating, as if he’s always been there and is wondering who has come to intrude. The two of them stare at each other for a long moment, a mutual assessment, before the kid jerks his head to the side, indicating for Luther to take the seat next to him. 

Luther does, setting down his backpack and trying not to feel awkward about how much space he takes up. 

The kid doesn’t seem to be having an issue with that. He’s dressed in a boarding school uniform with his socked ankles crossed in front of him, leaning back as if he owns the place despite the handcuffs bracketing his wrists and the security guard with rather severe bangs hanging out at his shoulder. He looks young, maybe thirteen, his age at odds with the self-assurance on his face. He has the air of a person who is used to being the smartest person in whatever room he happens to be in—he seems like a kid who lives firmly rooted somewhere just a touch shy of cocky, for what is probably very good reason. 

All in all, he’s not someone that Luther would usually be encouraged to speak to. Who he spoke to, what he did… Jack was very particular about those kinds of things. Jack would have been more likely to tell Luther to ‘put him in his place’ than to let him share some small talk. 

Things have changed, though. Jack isn’t here. And Luther figures that the people he usually spoke to were who got him into this mess in the first place, so he might as well give this a shot. He takes a deep breath and opens his mouth.

“So… do you know what happened at the camp? Why it was closed?”

It’s the first thing that came to mind, and he winces a little at the awkwardness of it. Thankfully the kid doesn’t seem to mind, because he ducks his head with a small, amused smile before turning his piercing gaze up toward the building across the street.

“Oh, sure. Warden got an ax to the head,” he says, as if he’s stating the weather.

Luther blinks. That was decidedly not what he was expecting. “…What. You can’t be serious,” he says, turning his large upper body towards the kid. 

The kid, in turn, just lounges farther back in his seat. “As serious as an ax to the head can be. They found him one morning in early April, lying in the remains of his tropical fish tank with the blade still in his skull. Worst case of heatstroke I’ve ever seen.”

There’s no way this kid is in his sound mind. The judge never said anything about a—a—violent uprising or anything like that. That’s not—

Wait. 

_Heatstroke?_

“What do you mean, heatstroke?” Luther asks, his brows furrowed.

The kid smirks. “Don’t tell me you don’t know the seven signs of heatstroke.”

Luther shifts in his seat. “Do I even want to know?”

“Sure you do. It’ll come in handy out in the desert. It’s saved my ass plenty of times. Goes like this.” The kid raises his cuffed hands and puts up a finger. “One—denial.”

“Wh—what do you mean _denial_?” Luther demands, feeling like he’s been yanked sideways.

The kid doesn’t respond. “Two—itching,” he says, raising a second finger.

“That doesn’t sound ri—”

A third finger. “Three—extreme thirst and urination.”

“Uh—”

“Four, excessive gas,” he says. He’s really on a roll now, not allowing Luther a word in edgewise. “Five, acute paranoia; six, uncontrolled perspiration, and, last but not least…” 

There’s a pause in which the kid clearly wrestles with a series of complex emotions that Luther cannot possibly fathom. Luther watches, more perturbed with every passing moment, until the kid finally shakes himself out of it and says, “Last but not least. Sign number seven, _homicidal rage_.”

It’s rude to stare. Luther is well aware of that, considering how uneasy people's stares make him. Right now, however, he feels quite justified in gawking like a flying saucer just landed in front of him and a little green man stepped out and waved at him. Because that is exactly what it feels like just happened. It’s just… there is _no way_ that these ‘seven signs of heatstroke’ are accurate. He’s ninety percent certain that he’s being screwed with. Either that or the kid has a screw loose, himself. That other ten percent, though… god. Suffice to say that Luther is now having some serious doubts about a few anatomical facts that he’s never doubted before. 

Shaking himself, Luther pushes all that aside. He just… he can’t, right now. He’s dealing with a lot as it is. Instead, he latches onto something else the kid said—something about how he’s been out in the desert before. Taking a leap, Luther changes tact and says, “So you’ve been to camp already.”

“Yup,” the kid says, rolling his neck out. “They offered all of us campers a choice when the place closed—finish out our time in Juvie or wait and go back to camp when it opened again. And, well, what can I say? I’m a masochist.”

“…Sure,” Luther says, feeling less sure every passing second. Thankfully, the decidedly less-than-cohesive conversation that they’re having is interrupted just then by the arrival of another kid, a boy with short-cut hair and a scar on his brow who gives the two of them a surly look before he stands to one side, flipping a playing card between his fingers. He’s followed by a black girl with curly bleached hair, and then, as if a dam somewhere has broken, a bunch of kids arrive all at once, swarming the bus stop. 

Luther offers the girl his seat just as the crowd hits, going to stand to the side with his backpack. He tries his best to melt into the background but judging by the looks he keeps getting he’s not doing a very good job. He’s nervous, too, which means his stomach is acting up—he has a feeling that he’s going to regret that breakfast burrito he had earlier when they’re all in a confined space on their way to camp, but heck, too late to do anything about it now. Hopefully, the bus has windows that open.

There are about forty teenagers milling about when the bus comes, creeping up to the curb. In just a few minutes they’ll be boarding, leaving their ordinary lives behind on their way out to Camp Green Lake. Luther bites his lip, willing his heart to stop beating out of his chest.

It’s then that the last of them arrives, ushered over by a second bored-looking security guard with a tan brace on his wrist. The kid stumbles, carrying nothing and dressed in just a black coat with a fuzzy collar and a motel towel, an exceedingly odd choice. Luther frowns, but he doesn’t have time to contemplate it further before the kid has tripped himself right into Luther’s space, his eyes wide and red, with huge blown pupils. 

“ _Christ_ , you’re big,” he says, apropos of nothing.

Luther’s mouth twists. “And you’re high, I’m guessing,” he says, tilting his chin up and staring down his nose.

The kid waves a hand, showing off the word ‘hello’ scrawled on his palm in sharpie. “Details, details. Anyway, does anyone have any munchies? I’m freaking _starving_ —”

And just like that, he wanders away, nearly tripping over the trailing corner of his towel in his bare feet. Luther stares after him, absolutely baffled, until the boy with the playing card snorts, dragging him out of his musings.

“How tall are you, anyway?” the guy asks, raising the scarred brow.

Luther shifts, uncomfortable. “Uh, six foot four? Ish?”

“Ish? You don’t even know?”

“I’m still growing,” Luther says, defensive. The guy just shrugs, flipping the card from one hand to the other with practiced ease. A moment later he heads forward to stand closer to the bus door, leaving Luther behind. Which is fine, because it’s not like Luther was planning to make friends straight off the bat. He’s here as penance for what he’s done, after all—it isn’t about making friends, it’s about making things right. About paying for what he’s done.

Breathing in slowly, Luther watches as the bus door creaks open. No more dawdling, he thinks to himself. No more putting it off. 

It’s time to go.

***

The bus is pretty full by the time everyone is on board. Luther picked a spot at the very front, just behind the two official camp security guards who are accompanying them out into the desert, guns in hand. He finds himself in the company of the guy with the playing cards, the girl with the curly hair, and the stoned kid, the last of which he assumes chose a seat near the front because he couldn’t make it any farther back in his current state. He’s sprawled out in his seat, staring out at the parking lot like it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen in his life. Luther tries not to roll his eyes and instead focuses on the girl.

“First time at camp?” he asks, aware that he’s being awkward but unable to help himself. She has perfect make-up on, the kind that movie stars wear on the red carpet, and he tries not to stare. He’s pretty sure he fails.

Thankfully, she doesn’t seem too put off by it. “Yeah. You?” she asks.

Luther nods. “Yeah. It’s, uh, an interesting place, or so I’ve heard.”

The girl laughs, and Luther smiles, and then they lapse into a stilted silence that stretches between the two of them like taffy. They have fifty minutes to go until they reach the camp.

Well. It could be worse, Luther reminds himself. Jack could be here with him, after all. He turns his attention to the city outside the window as it thins out into suburbs and then into farm country, until civilization seems to fall away altogether in favor of a stretch of unforgiving desert. The bus buzzes with superficial conversation, campers mumbling to each other under the revving of the vehicle’s overheating engine. Luther wonders offhand how many of these kids know what they’re getting into. Luther certainly doesn’t—it feels like a dream, still. Like he’ll wake up at any moment. He wonders if Jack was a dream, too—maybe his whole life was some kind of fantasy, some kind of nightmare, and he’ll wake to find out that he’s actually nothing more than a normal guy in a normal world, one with a normal life and a normal body and normal problems and—

He shakes the thought from his head, folding his arms across his chest and trying to shrink down into his seat. Normal? Him? Not likely. He’s never once been normal, and sometimes it feels like that’s by design. Like some greater force has shaped his existence, like he’s being watched and judged even when he’s by himself, alone with his own ungainly, too-large body. He’ll never blend in, never be just another guy, no matter how desperately he might want to.

It’s a sobering thought, especially in the face of his camp sentence. A thought that is made all the worse when he realizes with a lurch of his gut that they’re nearly there, the hour-long trip having whittled itself down to nearly nothing while he was lost in his head. Oh, how unfair the passage of time is, always slowing down when you want something to be over and speeding up when you need something to slow.

At least he isn’t doing this alone. He can’t imagine what it would be like to face down the end of the drive across the desert all on his own, wrapped in a blanket of silence and heat as the unrelenting sun bore down on him and him alone, facing the rest of his life and the other side of his last fight with shaking hands and trembling lip. But he doesn’t have to face that, thank god. He isn’t the only one, and for that, he’s never been more grateful. Even as the volume of the kids talking all around him only seems to rise as they pull off the dirt road and into the lot at the front of the first of the dust-colored buildings, nervous tension tightening in the air.

There’s a pair of people waiting for them there, a man and a woman. They’re both dressed smartly, the woman in a flared dress reminiscent of something from the sixties and the man in a white vest overtop a thin blue shirt with short sleeves and a starched collar. Luther studies the woman for a moment—her hair is a beautiful cascade of dirty blonde, and the lipstick on her soft smile is a charming shade of red—before focusing on the man. He’s wearing white shorts and impeccable white socks, and his face is decorated with a trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and mustache combo that makes him look like he’d be at home in Victorian England. He watches with narrowed eyes as the bus comes to a stop, polishing something in his hand with a handkerchief. A moment later he raises it to his eye—a monocle, glinting in the sunlight.

Luther furrows his brow as the bus engine cuts out. The woman, he assumes, is one of the staff members, judging by the cart at her side and the clipboard in her hands. That would make the man the head of the camp, the replacement to the guy who supposedly got the ax to the skull. He seems… well, kind of an odd sort of guy. Luther has never seen anyone use a monocle outside of superhero movie villains, and he certainly wasn’t expecting his first encounter with someone who does to be an old man out in the middle of nowhere. 

…Not that Luther really has room to judge, all things considered.

“Alright, everybody off!” the lady security guard calls, and there’s a bustle as everyone hurries to grab their things. Luther stands and starts to shuffle into the aisle at the same time as the kid across from him, the one with the playing cards—he magnanimously gestures for Luther to go first, rolling his eyes as he does. Luther smothers his responding eye roll, slinging his backpack across his back and angling his shoulders to get down the narrow stairs and out the door. 

“Number One!” the man calls, as soon as Luther steps down into the harsh sunlight. “Hand over your bag. Quick, quick, we don’t have all day!”

Luther hands his bag over, watching with dismay as the man rifles around in it, searching for contraband. The woman smiles, raising the clipboard. “What’s your name, dear?” she asks.

“Luther,” Luther says. He watches as she marks his name off a list on her clipboard, taking the stack of clothing that she hands over. A moment later, the man hands his backpack back to him, ushering him to stand to one side as he beckons the next camper over with a loud, “Number Two!”

And so it goes. First Luther (one), and then playing card guy (two), and then the girl with the movie star make-up (three), and then the stoned kid (four), and then the heatstroke guy with the cuffs on (five) who calls the woman ‘Mom’ and the man ‘Dad’. They all take their things, coming to stand beside Luther in varying shades of nervous/sullen/bored/amused. Luther watches the whole time, taking note of all the campers that he’s going to be living with for the next six months. 

They’re a motley crew, to say the very least.

The man has just called forward camper number six when a sudden loud siren cuts through the air, a police car pulling in behind the bus. Luther—along with all the others—turns away from Number Six to watch as the cop car pulls to a stop and one of the camp’s security guards steps up to open the back door. Luther cranes his neck as the man reaches in and hauls out…

…wow. That is one of the smallest girls Luther thinks he’s ever seen. If she breaks five foot he’ll eat a dirty sock. She looks up as the guard closes the car door, her face pale and her eyes huge between two curtains of mousy brown hair.

“Number Seven!” the man calls, sharp and impatient, gesturing to her as he ushers Number Six into line with the rest of them. “Come here! Hand me your effects!”

The girl does, ducking her head as she goes. Whether it’s in embarrassment or anxiety Luther isn’t sure, but as the man looks down on her with disdain he feels a sudden urge to stand between them.

He doesn’t, of course, because it’s not his place. There’s an order of things in places like this—authority to respect, orders to follow, all that jazz. He’ll be damned if he’s going to screw it up his first day here. Yes, even if said authority treats them like wayward cattle. Luther grits his teeth, standing taller and staring straight ahead as unlucky Number Seven joins him and the others at the side of the bus.

He has a feeling it’s going to be a long day.

***

“Numbers One through Forty-Three, listen up! I am Sir Reginald Hargreeves. You may call me Sir Hargreeves. Today, October first two-thousand-and-nineteen, is, for most of you, the first day of your sentence at Camp Green Lake. Follow along while I show you the camp and introduce you to the staff, as I will NOT be doing it again.”

Luther listens, rapt, as the man turns on his heel to lead them from the bus and into the compound, waving a hand toward the administration building as he goes. There is a small crowd of adults waiting in an open area between a cluster of dusty buildings—Luther swipes the sweat out of his eyes to get a better look at them.

“You’ve already met Grace,” Sir Hargreeves says, and gestures to the woman in the dress, who smiles with a little wave.

“Mom,” Five says, a small smirk on his face. 

Sir Hargreeves frowns. “Your insubordination clearly hasn’t ceased in your time away, Number Five. Yes, you children all have your ‘nicknames’ for us, but trust me when I say that if I hear you referring to me or anyone else as anything but a name or an assigned number you WILL be docked shower tokens.”

“Will I?” Five asks mildly. “Because I seem to remember my social worker putting up quite the fuss the last time I went two weeks without a shower.”

“Do not test me, boy,” Sir Hargreeves says, a severe frown on his face, before he turns to wave forward the next staff members, three counselors who look far too identical to be a coincidence.

Luther tries to pay attention to their real names, but he’s rather distracted by Five saying, “The IKEA mafia, Swede One, Two, and Three,” under his breath. Likewise for the janitor, a little guy who he calls Herbie, and the security guards, Hazel and Cha-Cha. There is a lady counselor who is dubbed Aggie, which almost sounds like a normal name, and a secretary who Five calls Polka-Dot, and then introductions are over with a promise that they will meet everyone else ‘as necessary’. Luther sighs, knowing he’ll have to ask for their actual names later on, and allows himself to be shepherded into one of the three changing room tents to put on a set of his new clothes, a white t-shirt and bright orange coveralls. The outfit is topped off with a set of large boots that have clearly never been worn by anyone before him.

“We had to special order those for you, dear,” says Grace as she takes Luther’s clothes and squeezes them into a plastic bag to put away for now. She smiles and gives Luther a pat on the cheek. “A special order for a special boy!”

Luther smiles back despite himself. She’s a bit of an odd one, Grace, but she’s sweet and he thinks he understands why Five calls her Mom.

The rest of their shuffle around the camp goes quickly. They stop by the recreation room, the showers, and the tents they are to sleep in, where they leave their belongings for the time being. Luther, Two, Three, Four, Five, Seven, and two more kids whose numbers Luther didn’t catch are assigned to Tent U, which Five cheerfully calls the Umbrella Tent. Luther nods along, his mind already a whirlwind of information and sand and heat and sweat, following behind as Five leads the way after Sir Hargreeves to the cafeteria for their first meal on the campgrounds. Grace is serving them, her beatific smile still stretched across her cheeks even as the kids that have lined up make faces at the low quality of the food she’s dishing out.

Luther, he finds, doesn’t mind. He just eats, ducking his head low over his tray. Number Four, the stoner boy, is tearing into his bread with a wild abandon and leaving crumbs everywhere as Three, the make-up girl, looks on in mild amusement. Seven, the mousy girl, is quiet, picking at her beans. Five laments the lack of coffee served with the meal, Two flips his plasticware around in his fingers like he needs something to do with his hands at all times, and Luther… well… he allows the conversations around him to wash over him, snark and laughter and awkward questions sent back and forth over the table.

By the time dinner is over, Luther feels more exhausted than he thinks he’s ever felt in his life. Even a second serving of food doesn’t really help—it’s in his bones, in his blood, a part of him that he doesn’t yet know how to face. And it’s only going to get worse, he knows. When they start digging, when shovel hits sand under the weight of the beating sun, he will probably feel even more exhausted than he does now. Still, he’s grateful when they file back to the sleeping tents, falling into his assigned bunk with a _whump_.

It’s then, and only then, that he realizes that he’s not going to be able to sleep any time soon.

Part of it, he knows, is the change. Knowing that this is his penance, his punishment… it adds gravity to every action he undertakes. Another part of it is the sheer number of bodies in close proximity. At home, it was just him and his mom, and his mom was only there when she wasn’t at one of her three jobs. He’s not used to being around so many shuffling, snoring people. Not used to being so far away from home, either. Not used to the way the heat beats down all day and seeps away from the chilled night. Not used to the thin, hard cot that his feet hang off of. Not used to this, not used to that… he wonders if he’ll ever get used to it.

But he got used to the fights. The violence. The blood. If anything, this is a step up from where he was before, all things considered.

He sighs, low in his throat, and turns onto his side. There is the smallest sliver of the night sky visible through the tent doorway, and he focuses on that, the moon shining through. It’s big, bright, surrounded by more stars than Luther ever sees in the city. Strange, distant, but somehow still the same.

He’s so focused on the view that he doesn’t realize that there is a pair of eyes on him until their owner leans forward off her bunk, angling to see what he’s looking at. She smiles a moment later, turning back to him. “The moon is almost full, huh?” she says, and her face is make-up free for the first time all day. 

Luther thinks she looks just as lovely like this.

But she asked a question. He shakes himself, and says, “It’s actually waning right now. It was full a few days ago.”

The girl, Three, snorts. “I see,” she says, amused.

Luther winces. “…Sorry, that was kind of weird to know off the top of my head, huh?”

But Three shakes her head. “No! It’s pretty cool, actually. Where did you learn that?”

“Uh. Well, I was really into moon stuff when I was a kid, so… I kind of wanted to be an astronaut but then I hit the height limit and now… well, now I’m here.”

“Is it what you expected?” she asks, bracing herself up on an elbow.

Luther hums. “The camp? Not really. Not sure I expected much of anything, though, to be honest—”

A groan sounds from across the room, cutting him off. “Would you two go to _sleep_?” says Number Two.

Three pouts. “Hey! We’re being quiet!”

“Not quiet enough,” Two grumbles. 

“What, can’t handle the fact that someone is having a nice conversation without you?” Luther snarks, annoyed.

Two snarls. “Whatever, Spaceboy. Don’t make me throw a playing card at you—I’ll give you a papercut from ten feet away.”

Luther scrunches his face up. “Spaceboy?” he asks, turning to Three, who is snickering.

“I think that’s gonna stick,” she says.

Luther groans, dropping back to his bunk. Spaceboy… ugh. Why this? And that isn’t the worst part. The worst part is that no matter how angry Luther _wants_ to be about it, he can’t find it in himself to be truly upset. It’s worlds better than what Jack used to call him. He’ll take Spaceboy over King Kong any day. 

Luther doesn’t remember the fight that got him in trouble. He doesn’t know how to move on from his mistakes, doesn’t know how to outgrow the violence that has embedded itself in his every cell. But heck if he isn’t going to try.

He closes his eyes, and he sleeps.


	2. Kraken

Diego finds a certain irony in the term ‘violent offender’, typed up neat and simple in his police file.

He thinks about it as he picks at the bruised and torn skin on his knuckles, waiting for his court assigned social worker to show up and do her thing. Violent… pff. Is it really violence if the guy had it coming? Because Diego likes to call it more… retribution. Sure, it was delivered in a flurry of fists and flying kicks, teeth tearing into skin and nails biting through flesh, but when a rapist walks free and then gets the shit beat out of him most people say he had it coming. And this guy? Whoo, boy, did he have it _fucking_ coming.

The cops, though… they don’t see it that way. Boot-licking rulebook following pricks, all of them. Ask a cop if a rapist getting off scot-free by crying like a baby at his trial is an acceptable outcome and they’ll tell you that it’s the justice system at work, innocent until proven guilty and blah blah blah. So much faith in the justice system. It’s annoying as hell.

Not as annoying as sitting in the precinct for three hours waiting for the social worker to show up, though, Diego would like it noted.

As the minute hand of the clock rounds the twelve again, Diego sighs, letting his chin hit his chest. “Beaman, dude, I’m going to scream if I have to sit here for another minute,” he calls, aiming for the cop sitting at the desk behind him.

“Hey, kid. Diego, right?” asks a voice that is definitely not Beaman. Diego flicks his eyes up, meeting the gaze of the lady who is crossing the room toward him. She’s pretty, in a distinctly cop kind of way—neat ponytail and a gray blazer over a blue shirt. Her skin is a nice shade of brown, as are her eyes. 

Diego smirks. He can work with this.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he says, leaning back a little further. “I’m sixteen, though—not really a ‘kid’ anymore.”

“Still younger than me, so.” The social worker sets down two mugs before pulling out a chair at the table. She pushes one toward Diego and sips from the other as she takes her seat, looking him over once, twice, three times. “I’m Eudora Patch,” she says.

Diego hums. “Lovely name, Eudora. Is that Greek?”

Unmoved, the lady taps her name tag, which has her last name on it. “You can call me Ms. Patch. Let’s keep this professional, kid.”

“Fine,” Diego sighs, tilting back in his chair. “So, what’s so important that you all had me sitting in suspense for three hours, hm?”

“I’m sorry about the wait. I’ll get right to business—I’m here to talk to you about Camp Green Lake.”

***

The day the camp re-opens, Diego gets his aunt to stop a few blocks short of the actual bus stop to let him out. He gets his things, fiddles with the radio for a moment, adjusts his seat for his brother, and then, when he can’t put it off any longer, leans over to press a kiss to his aunt’s cheek and get out of the car. He closes the door with a dull thud and is just checking to make sure his cards are in his pocket when the passenger side window rolls down, his aunt leaning over the center console with a pinched expression on her face.

Diego bites the inside of his cheek, leaning down to see her better.

“You take this seriously now, you hear me?” she says. “Get your act together out there. Because I love you, Dee, but we can’t keep doing this.”

Diego bites down harder for just a moment before he nods. “I know, Auntie.”

“Don’t disappoint me again.”

“…I won’t.”

“Good. Write to me whenever you can, understood?”

“Yeah. I will.”

She nods, and the window begins to roll up once again, leaving Diego staring at his reflection on the wrong side of the glass. He huffs, standing straight. Sets his shoulders. Swallows. And then he sets off, one foot in front of the other, as his aunt pulls off into traffic and drives right on past him without a backward glance.

He gets to the bus stop a moment later, and it’s… interesting. The kids that are already there are weird as shit, especially the boarding school kid. The big guy isn’t much better—he looks like a lost puppy. If puppies were about the size of moose, anyway. There’s a crowd soon, a bunch of kids showing up and milling around, and Diego occupies himself by flicking a card between his fingers, waiting for the bus doors to open. 

He spends most of the bus ride listening to the stoner kid mumbling about some weirdo reality TV show to no one in particular. He’s tempted a few times to butt in and tell him off—drugs are bad for you, kid’s probably got swiss cheese for brains, it would probably do him some good to have someone remind him to take care of himself—but he decides against it in the end. He just needs to get this over with—to keep his head down and to get through his sentence. Maybe if he does good he’ll even get out early. He doesn’t need to fuck up and get himself involved with these kids. He’s not like them, he’s not a delinquent, no matter what that damn police file says. _He had it coming_ , he thinks, like a mantra in his mind. He had it _fucking_ coming.

He thinks it all through orientation, introductions, dinner. All through a sleepless night and a light breakfast and getting their shovels from the locked tool cabinet. He thinks it as he stabs his shovel down into the hard earth, wedging it into the cracked surface and hauling a shovelful of sand up and to the side. He’s determined to do good, to be the best—he’ll blow all these other kids out of the water, even the big guy, dear old Number One.

It’s calming, in an odd way. There’s a repetition to it. Voices complain all around him—kids who aren’t used to using their muscles a day in their lives who are already feeling the burn—but Diego just leans into it, drinking from his canteen on a measured pace. Shovel, shovel, pause, sip. Shovel, shovel, pause, sip. He gets into a rhythm and it’s so simple that he nearly forgets the sheer fucking anger that bubbles under his skin, the anger that drove him to take his car to a rapist’s house, walk up to the door, and drive his fist directly into the asshole’s face as soon as he opened the door. He can soothe that anger with the motions of digging, he can breathe, he can survive, and it all will be fine.

Until, that is, they take their first water break, the water truck pulling up alongside them and Sir Hargreeves (dad?) getting out and lining them up by number. It’s then that Diego feels the anger surge up again—Two, he’s Two, because of course he is, always one step behind because _isn’t that just how it goes_.

…Then again, if he didn’t have to wait for dear old Number One to get his canteen filled he might not have seen stoner boy Four climb out of his (rather small) hole, take one step, and accidentally trip himself into the next hole over. That kind of made the whole experience worth it.

Taking his filled canteen back to his hole, Diego takes a moment to watch his tent-mates meandering around. There’s One, the big guy, who was clearly a boy scout at some point just judging by the way the goody-two-shoes follows Sir Hargreeves’ orders to a T.

Then there’s Three, a black girl who has her curly bleached hair up in a high bun and who keeps sending smiles toward One.

And then Four, the stoner boy who claims he got kicked out of military school in a record-shattering ten days.

Five, a speed-demon who is already halfway done with his hole, probably from all the practice he already has.

Seven, an incredibly small and quiet girl who Diego doesn’t trust as far as he can throw because the quiet ones are always the ones with the sharpest words just waiting to cut.

Thirteen, a conspiracy nut who is obsessed with Roswell and keeps asking them if they believe in aliens.

And finally, last and probably least… Twenty-Two, a haughty Asian girl who keeps making faces about the state of her nails and sending disgusted looks at Number Seven.

They’re an odd bunch, that’s for sure. Diego’s eyes sweep over all of them once more before he turns the other direction to look out at the desert. There is a mountain out there on the other side of the lake bed, in the opposite direction from the camp. It’s a peculiar shape, with a little bit jutting out on top like a fist with the thumb out. A distinctive landmark in a place where there isn’t so much as a tree or a hill. 

It’s then that Diego sees the silhouette off in the distance. He straightens up, squinting through the heat waves coming off the desert sand. It’s too far away to see clearly, and even as he looks it appears to be receding into the distance, a lone figure so far removed from civilization that if he didn’t know better he’d call them a ghost. He frowns, staring at the place where they finally disappear, wondering with an uneasy tug to his gut if he’s witnessed something… inhuman. 

But no. It can’t be. He’s never believed in ghosts, so why should he start now? Still… there’s something about the distance, the waiver of the form, the way they disappeared into nothingness that sets him distinctly on edge.

The figure is on his mind for the rest of the day. He makes it to lunch before he caves, walking up to Five with his dry, crusty sandwich in one hand and a question on his tongue. He leans on a dirt mound beside the smaller boy and says, “You’ve been here before. What’s the story with the lake? What happened to it?”

Five hums, producing a bag of marshmallows from seemingly nowhere. He peels open his own peanut butter sandwich, lining up the marshmallows on it before closing it again and taking a bite. It’s only after he’s waited a good few minutes, inadvertently attracting the attention of the rest of the Tent U campers, that he sighs and says, “Isn’t it obvious? It dried up.”

“Yeah, but… why?” Diego pushes, unwilling to give up just yet.

“Shifting climates, the destabilization of weather patterns, and the ripple effect from deforestation to the east, most likely,” Five says with a shrug.

Diego purses his lips. He’s never been great with science stuff. Anatomy, he can deal with. Physics he’s even good at. But forests and climate and shit? Nah. Point in case: how on earth would cutting down some trees dry out a lake?

“…That makes no sense,” he says. 

“Well, it would if you were smarter.”

Bristling, Diego starts forward to smack the self-satisfied look off of Five’s face. He’s halted by an absolute ham of an arm, thrown across his chest. He looks up to find One, holding him in place.

With a grunt he pulls free, pacing away. Then he crams the rest of his sandwich in his mouth, chewing aggressively until he feels calm enough to ask, “Was there a town here?”

“Yes,” Five says.

Diego waits a moment. “…And?” he asks, his patience sorely tested.

Five shrugs. “The town dried up right along with the lake. Nothing strange there. But…” He turns for a moment, watching Sir Hargreeves as the man stands to the side and writes in a thick red journal, before he turns back and leans forward, a serious expression on his face.

Everyone, even Twenty-Two, leans in closer to hear.

“They say,” Five starts, slow and deliberate. “That it hasn’t rained here in over a hundred years. Not a single drop in over a century. The neighboring cities get a few inches a year, and the mountains get a few more, but the lake bed itself hasn’t recorded precipitation since one very particular night in 1897. On that night, it’s said that the townspeople made a grave miscalculation—there was an outrage after a black man was seen kissing a white woman, and the man was killed in his boat out on the lake. From that moment on, this place has been barren, void of water and of life, home to nothing but the snakes and the lizards who herald a harsh, painful death.” 

He’s quiet for a long moment, his young face grave as he stares at each of them in turn. Diego swallows, feeling a shiver drive down his spine despite the heat. That silhouette, that figure… could it have been…?

“So, do you think it could have been aliens?”

…What?

Five blinks, turning on Thirteen with an incredulous expression on his face. “ _Aliens_?” he repeats.

Thirteen—Elliott, his name is, Diego remembers suddenly—nods, eyes huge in his pale face. “You know, Roswell reported strange barometric conditions before The Arrival—the feds cover that up, but people knew the aliens were coming long before they landed. What if—”

Diego scoffs as Thirteen starts off on a tangent, turning away so that he doesn’t have to listen to a dissertation of how the feds have suppressed the existence of aliens in New Mexico. He doesn’t have time for this. Moment’s over—he has a hole to dig. It’s time to get back to work.

***

They finish one by one, Five first and One following soon after. Diego is third, which only annoys him a little—he’s too exhausted to get really, truly pissed. He trails behind the other two on his way to the showers, so he can clean off and put on his casual orange jumpsuit.

The afternoon goes by slowly, as the rest of the forty-some odd campers trickle in one at a time. Everyone is subdued after a day of hard labor—everyone except Four, who hasn’t sat down once, choosing instead instead to sidle around the room and lean next to whoever is most tolerant of his rambling at any given moment. Diego does his best to glower whenever Four comes near him, but that doesn’t stop the kid from asking Diego to show him how to throw playing cards, and since Diego doesn’t really have an excuse to say no he eventually relents.

“Just until group,” he says, stern. 

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Four says, trying to pull out a card from the pack with jittery fingers. Diego sighs, pulling one out for him.

It’s… not a terrible way to pass time, Diego will concede that. Four isn’t a particularly quick learner—or maybe his hands are just a touch too shaky to do the motions right, either one—but he doesn’t get frustrated like some of the people Diego has tried to show, and he manages to get Diego to crack a smile once or twice with a few of his more ridiculous stories. Diego is feeling pretty good by the time they’re herded into one of the tents for group, electing to sit across from the lady counselor, Agnes, who brought them all donuts as a treat for getting through their first holes.

This is where things begin to go downhill.

Diego is munching quietly on his donut—One and Four both practically inhaled theirs—when the topic of the night is announced: family.

“You’re all missing the people at home, I’m sure,” Agnes says with a small smile. “I thought it might be a nice start to group to talk a bit about the people who support you. It doesn’t have to be biological family—it can be friends, teachers… anyone who is a big part of your life. Who wants to go first?”

No one offers, so Agnes starts off herself, talking about a certain Special Someone that Diego suspects is Hazel, one of the security guards. He crosses his arms over his chest, avoiding eye contact when she finishes and offers the floor to anyone who wants to speak.

“…How about we just go in a circle, then, hm?” she says when still no one answers.

So they do. Three talks about her dad and her little sister, Claire. Thirteen talks about his girlfriend—they’re broken up right now but once he’s out from camp he’s sure she’ll come around. One mumbles something about some friends he used to have, but he’s not sure if they really count. Seven mentions some orchestra people that she plays violin with, casting glances the whole time at Twenty-Two. And then… then it’s Diego’s turn.

“Diego? Care to share someone?”

Diego grits his teeth. He should say something about his older brother, probably. Or his aunt, his legal guardian. Yeah. It’s not ideal—he’s not that close with either of them, really—but it would probably be best. He won’t embarrass himself if he sticks to talking about the aunt who took him in seven years ago.

…And yet. The words do not come out. What comes out instead is a shaky breath, and a, “My m-mom—”

He slams his jaws shut. Most of the kids aren’t even looking at him, choosing instead to doodle on their skin or pick at their sleeves, but he feels like all eyes in the room are on him anyway. Agnes is looking straight at him, expectant, her soft voice encouraging as she says, “Your mom? Would you like to talk a bit about her?”

Diego shakes his head. He does, he really really does, but not here, not like this—not when his tongue is leaden in his mouth and he can’t get the words out past his soft palate. 

“Just a sentence, maybe?” Agnes coaxes, giving him a small smile.

He grits his teeth. “I don’t want to,” he says, and the pride he feels at getting the words out unbutchered is short-lived as One leans back, rolling his eyes. _Useless_ , he seems to be saying.

“Look, I don’t have to share anything with y-you,” Diego says, and he says it directly to One, turning his eyes on all the rest of them for good measure. “Fuck off.”

“Language,” Agnes reprimands, but Diego doesn’t give a _shit_ anymore. His chest is hot and his hands are tight and he feels like he has molten lava pumping through his veins. He doesn’t want to do this anymore, if he ever fucking did. He doesn’t want to _be here_ . The guy had it coming, he had it _fucking_ coming, and Diego doesn’t deserve to have his brain picked by a bunch of _assholes_ just for doing what was right.

So he stands up, and he tries to leave. And apparently there is one of the three identical Swedish staff members waiting outside the tent flaps just in case such a thing happens, because as soon as he makes it outside he’s getting hauled off to a ‘cool down room’ to ‘take a breather’. He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t need to fucking _cool down_ —he just needs to be out of there, away from all their judgmental eyes. 

Of course, no one listens, and he’s in there for an hour and a half. He’s late to dinner by the time they let him out, hungry and fuming. He elects not to sit with his tent-mates and instead crams himself into a distant corner, stabbing his food. There he stays, until about halfway through, when he feels a small tap on his shoulder.

He would have been content to keep to himself for the rest of the night, and in fact is getting ready to snap at whoever it is who’s decided to bother him, when a delicate woman’s hand slides forward next to him, placing a bunched up napkin on the table beside his tray. He glances over.

It’s Grace, or, as Five calls her, Mom. She has her usual smile, her eyes crinkled up just a little. “You looked like you needed it, sweetie,” she says, and stands up again. She pats him on the arm before she spins, her dress spinning with her, and her high heels clack away across the floor.

Diego furrows his brow, reaching for the napkin. Inside is a single chocolate kiss, still cool from the freezer.

Diego takes it slowly. He swallows past the lump in his throat. He didn’t get a chance to thank Mom, but she doesn’t seem to need or want a thank you—she just wanted to do something kind for someone having a bad day. 

Feeling the tension draining from his core, Diego carefully begins to peel back the wrapper. Mom… she and his mother would get along great, he thinks.

***

He’s halfway through his hole on day two when Diego sees the silhouette out in the desert again. He pauses what he’s doing, glancing around to see if anyone else has stopped to look.

They haven’t. He’s on his own for this one. He takes a long drag from his canteen before hopping from his hole with a call of, “Going on a piss break!”

…He takes his shovel with him, just in case.

He’s half afraid that the figure will keep receding into the distance as he walks toward it, like ghosts—or, more likely, mirages—are prone to doing. They don’t seem to be moving away, however, and even begin to come clearer as he walks, making his way around holes as he goes. They look like… a kid, if he’s being honest. All dark hair hanging around a dark face and orange jumper at least three sizes too big. Diego watches as they grow closer, moving toward him as he moves toward them. They’re skipping despite the heat, lively and quick until they’re barely twenty paces away.

It’s… huh. It’s a girl. Young. She grins, dusting off her sandy hands and catching Diego’s eye. “Oi, don’t you have a hole to dig, huh?” she calls, in a lyrical British accent.

Diego frowns, pulling at the collar of his jumpsuit and glancing back toward his tent group. “Don’t you?” he counters, watching as she saunters around all the various holes to stand at the other side of the one he’s stopped at. She leans forward toward him, a smile playing on her sharp features.

“Nah,” she says, and her grin is wicked. “I always finish first.”

Diego plants his shovel, leaning forward onto the handle. “Oh yeah? Then why are you still out here in the heat, hm?”

“It’s boring all on my lonesome in the rec room, waiting for you lot.”

“Sucks to suck, I guess.”

The girl snorts. “Eloquent. I’m Lila, by the way.”

“…Diego.”

“Well, Diego. How about we make today a little more interesting?”

“Oh? What do you have in mind?”

She tilts her head past him, looking back the way he came. “Well. You still have most of a hole to dig, but… what do you say to a bet?”

Diego frowns, looking at the girl. She’s young—he’s not sure if she’s even supposed to be here at the camp, let alone doing back-breaking labor day in and day out. “Is it even legal for you to bet? How old are you?” he asks.

“Thirteen,” says Lila, who can’t be more than ten.

Diego snorts. “No fucking way.”

“Do you want to play or not?”

“Fine, fine,” Diego concedes. “What do you have in mind?”

She tells him, and he thinks about it for only a moment before he agrees, allowing her to tag along behind him on his way back to his hole. No one really notices as they draw nearer—except Five, who is just finishing up his hole for the day. He glares at Lila from across the way for a long moment, sharp eyes flicking between Lila and Diego, before he gives a little shrug and begins his trek to the showers.

“Okay,” Lila says, perching on the edge of Diego’s hole as he drops into it. “This rock, and… that hole.”

Diego takes the rock she hands over, glancing over her shoulder at the hole she’s indicating. It’s Four’s hole, shallower than most of the others except for Twenty-Two. He smirks, tossing the rock in the air to test it’s weight—that’s an easy one. 

With one swift motion, he brings his arm back and hurls the rock neatly over Four’s ducked head and into the hole.

She hums, sounding bored. “Again,” she says, and hands over another rock. 

Again Diego nails the throw, watching with satisfaction as the rock clatters into Four’s hole and Four calls out a disgruntled yelp.

Lila’s brow twitches. “That was a fluke,” she says, and hands over a dirt clod. “Let’s try something harder—the big guy’s hole.”

“Number One?” Diego asks. It’s farther away, and One is decidedly larger than spindly little Klaus, but he’s sure he can make it. He eyes the distance for a moment before drawing his arm back and sinking the clod directly into One’s hole.

Unfortunately for them, One startles, raising his head and nailing Diego with a glare. “Do that again and I’m calling Sir Hargreeves,” One says, as Diego raises both hands in surrender. Lila snorts, and One glares at her, too, before slowly going back to digging.

Diego lets out his breath, leaning on his shovel. “Well, that’s our fun for the day,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I need to finish digging, anyway.”

“…You do, but maybe we can try something else,” Lila says. She has her head tilted to one side, eyes twinkling. 

“What are you thinking?” Diego asks.

She grins. “Nothing too difficult. Just… meet me in the rec room once you’re finished or whatever. Then we’ll see if your aim is really a fluke or not.”

And with that, she’s up and skipping away, her chin-length hair bobbing about her face as she goes.

Diego shakes his head, watching her until she disappears into the heat waves once more.

***

By the time Diego is done with his shower, Four has finished his hole and is wandering toward the rec room, absolutely covered in dirt and clearly unwilling to do anything about it. Diego rolls his eyes, walking past him and looking around the rec room for Lila.

He finds her near the back, standing at a very faded plastic dartboard. “Here,” she says, hardly even turning as he walks up to her. She thrusts out a hand, passing over five suction darts. “Hit the bullseye with every one of those and I’ll give you the shower tokens I’ve bet you.”

Diego takes the darts, weighing them in his hands. “Yeah? All ten of ‘em? That’s two shower tokens per dart, you know.”

Lila smirks condescendingly. “Don’t get cocky,” she says, and stands to the side. Diego smiles back, a sharks grin. Then he cracks his knuckles, tests the weight of the darts, and lets fly.

Not a single one misses its mark.

“Wow, you’re so good,” says a voice at his ear, slurring a little. “You’re like… the kraken.”

Diego blinks over at Four, baffled. “The sea monster?” he asks.

But Four is shaking his head. “No, no… it’s like, you know, kraken? Cracking? Like you cracked your knuckles? Get it?”

Oh. Diego snorts. “Sure, buddy.”

“I’m gonna call you that from now on,” Four says, yawning widely and wandering off. Diego rolls his eyes, and turns to Lila to ask for his shower tokens—

—only by the time he does, she’s gone, as if she were never there in the first place.

Diego frowns, stumped. “What the…” he says.

Someone clears their throat to his left, and he turns to find Five lounging in an armchair with half of a broken doll nestled in the crook of his elbow. “She gave you the slip,” he says.

“I can see that,” Diego grits out.

“Don’t know why you weren’t expecting it. She’s slippery, that one.”

“Whatever. How would you know?”

“I’ve seen her file. I’ve seen all of your files, actually. You’re here on assault and battery charges, for instance.”

Diego bristles. “Oh yeah? Well what are you here for, smartass, hmm?”

Five shrugs. “Mass slaughter. I was a murderer for hire.”

With a snort, Diego goes to collect the darts from the board. It isn’t until he’s halfway back that he realizes Five isn’t laughing with him.

“…Wait, you’re not serious, are you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Dolores says I need to lighten up sometimes, but I don’t really see the point, do you?”

…Well then. Diego opens his mouth, unsure what he’s going to say in response to that, but before he can Dad calls his name from the rec room door, beckoning him over curtly. Diego brushes off the conversation and heads over, feeling oddly unsettled.

“Normally we wouldn’t allow calls until the weekend, Number Two,” Dad says, walking briskly down toward the administration building. “But your social worker was rather insistent that she needed to talk to you right now, so we’ll allow it. Come along.”

Diego does, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Hello, Eudora,” he says as he picks up the phone that Dad gestures to.

“Don’t call me that,” Eudora says, getting the basics out of the way first. Diego fake-flirts, Eudora tells him to keep it appropriate, and then they move on to how Diego is doing, if he’s settling in all right and doing okay with the counselors and staff and other campers, etc etc etc.

Diego is as honest as he can be. It isn’t much, but sometimes he feels like Eudora understands him better than his own aunt—she’s one of the best listeners he’s ever known, and he’s secretly very thankful that she’s his social worker.

Until she takes a deep breath and tells him that there’s something else they need to talk about, anyway.

“I’m sick,” she says. “It’s pretty serious. I’m going to keep doing my job as long as I can but I might have to reassign your case to someone else. If that happens, I want you to know that you can still call to talk to me, okay? I’m still here for you, even if I can’t manage your case anymore.”

Diego swallows. “Right,” he says. He feels suddenly like he’s outside his skin, his mind fuzzy as she gives him her personal cell phone number, which he writes down on a sticky note that Dot, the secretary, hands over. He zones out as she says her goodbyes, zones out afterward at dinner, zones out while Mom comes around to hand out medication to Seven and Five and a few others. He doesn’t really wake up, for whatever value of awake it is, until long after they’ve all gone to bed. Then he gets up, crawling from his sheets and going to sit out by the front of the tent.

He isn’t alone for long. It’s just moments later that the figure dissolves from the shadows to come sit next to him.

“You owe me shower tokens,” he says.

“Don’t be a baby,” she says back. Then: “You’re upset.”

He lets his head roll on his shoulders, stretching his neck. It’s nothing that he can’t handle—Eudora is just a social worker, after all. It’s not like they were in it for the long haul, right? If she needs to step back, that’s okay. He’ll deal with it. He will. It’s just… well…

“My mom,” he says, and the words come out smooth and un-stuttered on his tongue for the first time in what feels like decades. “She, uh… she was hurt badly once. She didn’t die, but she, um… she had a breakdown and needed some time away. I was just thinking about it because my—my social worker might also need some time away. Because she’s sick. So I’m just… I don’t know. Thinking about how things happen, sometimes, and there’s nothing you can really do about them. You know?”

Lila is silent for a long moment. So long, in fact, that Diego is debating just getting up and leaving again when she opens her mouth.

“I… I know what you mean. My parents, they were killed. I found them, shot, on our living room floor. I was four.”

Diego cuts his eyes to the side, taking in Lila’s still face in the moonlight.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” he says, and he means it with everything he has in him.

“I’ve never told anyone that before,” she says. She swipes a hand across her face, there and then gone again. “I’m sorry about your mom. And your social worker.”

“Yeah,” Diego says, and leans back on his hands, staring out toward the night sky. “I just… I wish there was something I could do.”

Lila stares along with him, and the two of them fall into a contemplative silence, looking out at the remnants of the universe, of stars long-since snuffed out, whose light is only just now reaching them.

It’s still beautiful, Diego thinks. Still so beautiful.


	3. Rumor

“You can’t be here.”

The voice is quiet, barely louder than the general murmur of the hospital, but Allison hears it all the same. It’s kind of hard not to—it’s aimed at her, after all, unyielding despite it’s softness.

Allison swallows, then raises her head to meet the nurse’s stern gaze. She’s sure she’s a sight—all red eyes and mascara streaked down her face from how hard she’s been crying—but the nurse is unmoved. She doesn’t even wait for Allison to open her mouth before she’s shaking her head, saying in that same quiet voice, “Save it. She doesn’t want to see you. Go home, you hear me?”

Allison’s first instinct is to argue because she knows she’d win. Instead, she nods, stands, and heads out into the night to where her dad is waiting for her in the parking lot. He’s worried, she knows—he’s probably got a lecture brewing, ready to tell her off for what she’s done. She wouldn’t blame him. In hindsight, spreading a rumor that convinced the entire student body to go from idolizing to ignoring one of the more popular cheerleaders—even if said cheerleader kind of _really_ deserved it—was a pretty bad idea. Though in Allison’s defense, she didn’t know that the cheerleader was going to land herself in the hospital. She thought that the girl would learn a lesson and become a nicer person, not… you know… try to _kill_ herself.

The thought is enough to bring tears to Allison’s eyes. She sniffles, wiping at her cheeks with the cuff of her sweater as she waits for her dad to unlock the truck door for her. Without a word, she settles into the passenger seat. It’s a punishment she inflicts on herself, refusing to speak. It was her voice that got her into this mess—maybe if she gives it a time-out she’ll stop _screwing everything up_.

Or maybe not. Who knows. Maybe it’s just inevitable. She sighs as her dad starts the engine, pulling out of the parking space. He waits until he’s on the main road, and then he clears his throat.

_Here it comes_ , Allison thinks, and it’s almost a comfort. 

Almost.

“I called the office while you were in there,” he starts. “They don’t usually look into this kind of stuff—usually focused on digging up dirt on politicians—but Jerome said he owed me a favor so I asked him to look into your case.”

Allison doesn’t speak, just sniffles again.

Her dad sighs. Then he continues, “It’s not official yet, but some people at the courthouse think that there’s a good chance they’ll offer you a place at Camp Green Lake. If they do… I want you to take it.”

…That’s enough to shock Allison out of her self-pity. “What? No way!” she says, indignant. She was gearing up to be expelled, to get moved to some private school where they’ll watch her like germ in a petri dish for the rest of high school, not to get thrown into camp with a bunch of lunatic boys who can’t function in society.

Her dad sighs, his grip tight on the steering wheel. “Allison…” he starts, and stops again. He takes a deep breath before going on. “I thought about this for a long time today, and I’ve come to the decision that you… babe, you need this. You need the discipline, discipline that I can’t give to you. And I think… I think it’s best if you don’t see Claire until you prove that you can behave yourself.”

Allison’s mouth goes dry. “What do you mean?” she asks. 

“I mean… you can’t just get everything you want. You need to understand that there are rules and consequences. Your sister is young, she’s impressionable—is this really the behavior you want to show her?”

“You can’t just—just take her away from me like a toy!”

“This is for her good, and yours.”

“But—”

“No buts. Not this time. Promise me that you’ll go if they offer.”

Allison stares at her dad’s profile, his clenched jaw and glassy eyes glimmering under the streetlights, for a long moment. Then she sits back in her seat, back straight and her sweater cuffs bunched in her fisted hands, and tries not to cry all over again.

“Fine,” she says, when she’s sure her voice won’t betray her. “I’ll go.”

Her dad nods, once. 

They drive the rest of the way home in silence.

***

They’ve been at camp for a grand total of five days and dug a grand total of five holes before Allison decides that enough is enough. She had ivy league aspirations, okay—she was going to get out of her little hometown, get a big degree, become a movie star… she was going to _go_ places. Digging holes and doing group is all fine and dandy, but she’s getting more and more behind by the day.

It’s with this in mind that she approaches Dad, voice ready and head held high. She promised herself no more rumors, no more manipulation, but this hardly counts. It’s for a good cause, after all. It will benefit all the campers—she isn’t doing it to teach anyone a lesson, just to _get_ them lessons, which is an important distinction. The ends justify the means, in this particular instance.

She waits a good fifteen minutes at the entrance to the old man’s tent with Mom, waiting to be called all the way in. She’s half convinced that he’s forgotten all about her when he finally sets down the journal he’s writing in and says, “Number Three! Make it quick!”

She does, launching into a prepared speech that just so happens to hint about the fact that her father, you know, the very influential journalist of the Daily Star, has asked about how the camp rehabilitates its campers. The counselors and camp staff wouldn’t want to be seen as lacking proper educational resources for at-risk kids, now would they?

It’s an approach that is a little… bendy… with the truth. It’s true in the sense that her father asked about the camp during their weekly fifteen minute phone call, yes. The implication that he asked in a professional sense, however, is a bit left of accurate. And the insinuation that he intends to write an article about the camp, well… that’s pure fabrication. 

Still, Allison has her eyes on the prize now. As she finishes speaking, Dad narrows his eyes at her. He’s seated, and she’s standing, but he still somehow makes her feel like she’s about seven years old again, playing pretend at her dad’s office while her dad’s coworkers share secret laughs behind her back. While said coworkers had found it cute that she was leading a pretend legal team on a rampage through the print shop, however, she gets the distinct impression that Sir Hargreeves is measuring her every word against a blueprint in his mind and finding her sorely lacking. He’s hardly moved a centimeter by the time Allison closes her mouth again, frown lines etched into his face as he stares her down.

For a moment the tent is quiet. Allison is all but convinced that she’s failed in her quest… until, that is, Dad lets out a huff. “You’re concern is noted,” he says. “Lucky for you, I’ve already informed the warden that we’ll be hiring on a tutor. With pressure from the campers as well I’m sure we can expedite the process. _However_.” And here he leans forward, his sharp eyes boring into Allison’s own. “I will not tolerate precocious children growing presumptive about the inner workings of the camp. You are here to dig, first and foremost. Tutoring is a privilege here, Number Three—forgo your labor and you forgo your learning. Are we understood?”

Allison nods, pressing her lips together. 

Dad stares at her for a moment longer, before he leans back and pulls his journal toward him once more. “Good. Dismissed!” he barks, and Mom winks at Allison before she leads her back out of the tent.

***

Breath in… hold… breath out. Allison raises her arms, stretching them out at either side, fingers spread wide. She didn’t realize how tense she was before her talk with Dad. She’d needed a success, a win, and even Dad putting her in her place afterward doesn’t sour the refreshing surge of excitement/happiness/ _relief_ coursing through her system.

It’s just… it’s a _high_ , talking someone into doing things her way. Using her words to nudge someone in the right direction, to influence and guide them… she has a talent, and using it is _heady_.

Until she’s yanked sideways by the memory of that day at the hospital, that is.

It’s brief but sobering, as it always is. She bites her lip, arms falling back against her sides as she purposefully pushes the memory away. She felt like she did the right thing this time, in talking to Dad… but she always feels that way when she decides to do something. It isn’t until afterward, when she has to face the consequences of her actions, that she starts to think that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all.

But it’s true that the camp could use a tutor. She wasn’t wrong about that, Dad said it himself. So she must be in the right this time. She did the right thing. She’s _not wrong_.

…Right?

She can’t be sure. She can’t trust herself to know the difference between right and wrong, not anymore. And that, right there… that’s the reason that she’s here instead of private school. Because she can’t trust herself to do the right thing next time. 

Allison sighs. She needs a distraction—someone to talk to, who can help her get her head on straight. There’s still an hour until curfew, which means the rec room is still open—she’ll just pop in and see who she finds.

…That would be Two and… what was that little girl’s number? Allison frowns, trying to remember her from their first day but coming up short. The two of them have become a common sight around the camp. Right now they’re arguing, which they seem to do a lot—not anything mean, just bickering back and forth like siblings. It’s kind of endearing, actually. Or it would be, if they weren’t currently going at it about what would kill a human faster, a crocodile or a hippopotamus?

Allison raises her lip in disgust, slipping past them before they can drag her into it. Very opinionated, those two. And speaking of opinionated, there’s Five, who told Allison on their third day out in the desert that you should always start digging at the edge of a hole rather than the middle, and then proceeded to scoff like it should be obvious when she asked why. He’s currently being accosted by Four, who has made it his life’s mission to guess Five’s real name, which no one but the counselors and Five himself knows. Five seems to like it that way—Four, however, is determined.

“Frankie. Felix. Fernando,” he’s saying now, waiting to see if Five, who is reading, responds to any of the names he throws out. Allison is pretty sure that Five has a Four-specific filter because he doesn’t so much as blink when Four leans closer, getting into his space. She considers settling down beside them, but she can already tell that the guessing game is going to get annoying, and fast, so she pats Four’s curly hair on her way past and keeps looking.

Thankfully, she spots Seven next, hunched up in a seat at the back table with her straight hair and a pencil and piece of paper. Seven—Vanya, Allison reminds herself, because girls have to stick together (Allison makes a note to get Twenty-Two, Helen, in on this action)—is another odd one, quiet and almost _painfully_ introverted. Allison has taken it upon herself to draw her out of her shell, so she walks right up to her and plops down into the chair at her side, accidentally startling her. 

“Oh,” Vanya says. “Hi, Three.”

“Allison,” Allison says, putting emphasis on the name and the smile she gives Vanya. Vanya’s lip quirks as if she’s not sure whether she should smile back or not. That’s fine—Allison will get a real smile out of her sooner or later. For now she just focuses on setting Vanya at ease. “What are you working on?” she asks, leaning over to see.

Vanya flinches, drawing her paper toward herself. “Oh. Um. Nothing, really. Just kind of putting thoughts on paper, I guess?”

Allison nods. “I get you. It’s kind of loud in here for thinking, though, isn’t it?”

Glancing around, Vanya puckers her lips into a little pout that Allison finds absolutely adorable. “Yeah, you could say that,” she says.

“And the _boys_. So _annoying_ ” Allison says, rolling her eyes. “I swear, none of them have an off switch. They’re like wind-up toys—you just crank them up and watch them go.”

That gets a snort out of Vanya, who looks surprised at herself. She shifts a little, a frown line pinching between her brows. “Uh, yeah… they’re… uh, sorry, but I… why are you talking to me, again?”

“Should I leave you alone?” Allison asks, deflating a little.

“Oh! No, I just… it’s a little surprising to be included… I guess…”

Allison presses her lips together. “Well, that won’t do. Come on—let’s gossip about something,” she says, and when Vanya nods she begins to talk about some of the observations she’s made. Like how Two already has a secret handshake with the janitor, Herbie, and how Five seems to be staking out the warden’s cabin, and how Mom and Dad are _probably_ a thing.

Vanya tilts her head at that last one. “There’s no way they’re together,” she says.

“No, really! He gets all weird whenever she’s around. Here, I’ll prove it,” she says, and gets up from the table. Vanya follows, tucking her paper hastily into the pocket of her orange coveralls. 

It doesn’t take long to locate Dad. They just find the sound of the lecturing and follow it like breadcrumbs. His unfortunate victim is a black boy with neatly trimmed hair, who is standing politely in front of the old man as Dad dresses him down for trying to sneak food out of the kitchens.

“—this behavior will _not_ be tolerated,” Dad is saying, looking disdainfully down at the boy like he’s looking at a worm. “The punishment will be swift and judicious, starting with—”

It’s here that Allison steps forward, feigning concern. “Sir,” she says, and she knows she’s really pushing him now but she can’t quite let it go. “You look upset. Do you want me to get Mom for you?”

The frown lines in Dad’s face go even sharper, and Allison can almost swear that his mustache is quivering from the force of his anger. He opens his mouth as if to refuse her, or perhaps just turn the lecture on her, but before he can do either one Mom is walking out of the kitchens with a few of the boys, carting dishes to be washed. She waves at them, her beatific smile wide, before she returns to her task.

Dad seems to have lost his stride. “…There will be no more secret food liberations, are we understood?” he says, forgetting that he was about to deliver a punishment altogether. The boy nods, and Dad spins on his heel without another word, walking in the opposite direction of Mom.

Allison waits until he’s out of earshot before she lets out her breath, a smile breaking across her face. Vanya has a hand clapped over her mouth, giggles seeping out between her fingers. The boy turns to the two of them, raising both his hands.

“That,” he says, “deserves a high five.”

Vanya politely declines, but Allison gladly accepts, clapping her hands to his. He smiles, and it’s such a cute smile that Allison has to smile back.

“I’m Ray, number Seventeen,” he says. “Who are you lovely ladies?”

“Three,” Allison says, and then, when he gestures for more, “Allison. This is Vanya, Seven.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ray says, and meets her eyes for a moment.

Allison ducks her head, the smile so wide on her face that she thinks it’s going to stick forever. He’s… well, he’s _cute_. She hasn’t had a crush on anyone in a long time—not since Patrick, and things didn’t work out with him, not after the thing with the cheerleader. 

Another stab of guilt, and Allison clears her throat, hurrying to move the conversation along. “So, why were you in the kitchen trying to steal food?” she asks.

Ray laughs, looking around. Then he leans forward conspiratorially and pulls down the zipper on the front of his coveralls just far enough to show the corner of a chocolate bar. “One of my tent-mates isn’t feeling well,” he says, and zips the zipper back up. Then he claps, a sparkle to his eye. “I’ve enjoyed our little conversation, but I really must be going.”

“Oh, of course,” Allison says. She steps back to let him go, and he does, tipping an imaginary hat as he goes.

“I’ll talk to you lovely ladies later,” he says, and then he’s gone.

“…That was interesting,” Vanya says. “Dad, like, booked it out of here.”

Allison laughs. “Told you he has a thing for Mom,” she says. She then offers her elbow to the other girl, glancing over her shoulder just as Ray disappears from view.

***

The next day dawns bright and relentless. One is up first, as he always is—he goes around the tent waking everyone and offering quiet-yet-stern remarks that almost pass as encouragement for the day. Allison watches as he and Two nearly come to blows two minutes after the morning wake-up call, rolling her eyes. Then One is at her bed, offering her a hand up.

She takes it, and he nearly lifts her off her feet as she climbs from her sheets. “Suns out guns out,” she snorts, patting him on his considerable bicep when he sets her gingerly back down. 

“…I’m wearing long sleeves,” he says, awkward. Allison waves him away, heading for the girl’s changing tent.

They get out to the desert too soon, bodies already tired from five days of digging. Allison is slowing down, spending more time picking at the blisters on her hands than she is really digging. 

She frowns, leaning on the edge of her hole, which is up to her thigh. Then she very deliberately picks up a clod of dirt and tosses it at One.

The response is immediate. “Two, I can _and will_ report you to Sir Hargreeves,” One says, turning on the boy in the hole next to him. 

“I didn’t even do anything this time!” Two says back, straightening with a glare. Despite his insistence that he’s innocent, however, he looks about ready to throw his shovel aside and throw down.

“Look, I know it was you—” One says, and Allison can’t help it anymore—the laughter she’s been stifling is coming out whether she wants it to or not.

At the sound, One turns to her. He stares for a long moment, mouth hanging open in disbelief. Then his face softens, a smile creeping up the edges of his mouth. “Oh, it’s on,” he says, and Allison squeals as he scoops up a handful of dirt and tosses it her way.

It’s as good a time for a break as any, Allison figures, and responds in kind.

The fight lasts just long enough to have them gasping laughter, covered in dust from head to toe like two matching dirt bikes after a long ride. They lean on each other, huffing, until Allison hears a small sob that is entirely out of place.

She whips her head around, spotting Helen and Vanya stand a little ways off to the side. Helen is leaning over Vanya, lip curled as she says something too low to hear, and Vanya just looks so small and helpless that Allison knows she has to do something. A quick look at One and she can see the instinct rising in him, too—he hops out of his hole and rises to his full height in one swift motion, marching over to the two girls. Allison strides over on his heels, waiting until both Vanya and Helen’s attention is on One before she plasters a fake smile on her face and says, “What’s going on here?”

“Just talking,” Helen says, and the words between the words are quite clear—back off or else. Vanya has her head ducked down, wiping desperately at her eyes, and Allison knows that she and One are on the same page here.

One stands impossibly taller, his shadow coming down over Helen. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me to see Sir Hargreeves,” he says to her, unyielding.

“And if I don’t?” Helen says, raising a prim eyebrow.

Allison’s smile grows sharper. “One here won’t hit a girl, but I’m not above it,” she says.

Helen looks between the two of them for a long moment, before she tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Whatever,” she says, and walks off with a huff. One follows, ostensibly to make sure that she makes it to Dad for her punishment, leaving Allison with Vanya.

Vanya, who is shaking where she stands.

“Hey,” Allison says, leaning down a little to try and see Vanya’s face. “What did she say?”

Vanya avoids here eyes, choosing instead to pick at her sleeves. “It wasn’t anything. We know each other from school, that’s all.”

Allison purses her lips. “Well, even so that doesn’t give her the right to make you cry. Come on, I’ll help you with your hole, okay?”

The look on Vanya’s face… god. Allison knows she did the right thing just by how Vanya lights up like Allison is the sun in the very sky itself. She guides Vanya back to her hole, slipping down into it and taking the shovel that Vanya passes her, glad that she can, at least, do this right.

***

Allison doesn’t think much of the whole event for the rest of the day. Not until she’s sitting on her bunk just before dinner, penning a letter to her dad, and One comes in behind her, knocking awkwardly on a tent pole.

“Um, hi,” he says. “Do you—can I talk to you for a minute?”

Allison nods, packing up her stationary and making room on her bed for him to sit. He’s got one hand behind his back as he comes over, looking awkward as ever. 

“What do you have?” Allison asks, when the silence starts to pinch.

One jumps, as if he’d forgotten about the hand behind his back. Then he swallows, and brings out… oh, no. A small, battered box of chocolates, obviously smuggled in somehow.

Good. God. 

_Why_.

“I just thought… we work well together,” he says, as if in answer to her unasked question. “So I was just wondering if… if you’d go out with me?” 

_God_. He looks so hopeful that Allison almost feels bad for letting him down. But she must do what needs to be done—she can’t accept, not in good conscience, not when there is a little spark that lights in her stomach when she thinks of a certain someone else.

“This is flattering,” she manages, pasting a smile to her face. His hopeful eyes grow brighter. “…But I can’t accept. I just want to be friends. Is that okay?”

For a moment nothing moves, not even the tent walls in a breeze. Then One jerks back, graceless, with a nod. “Right!” he says. “That’s—no, that’s totally fine! I just—well, I thought—but you’re not interested so—I’ll just—uh—”

He flounders for a moment, before looking down at the box in his fist. “…Do you want one anyway?” he asks at last. “As friends?”

Allison smiles, for real this time, at the sincerity in his voice. “Sure,” she says, “But just one. I have to finish my letter if I want to mail it tonight.” He nods, and she chooses a cherry-filled one, leaving the other three for him. He’s going to need them, she figures. 

He leaves soon after that, looking almost timid as he inches back out of the room with a stilted wave. Allison sighs, leaning back on her bunk for a long moment. She wonders if Vanya has to deal with boys and romance and all this junk. Vanya doesn’t really strike her as the type, but then again, what does Allison know. She decides to ask next time she sees the smaller girl.

Her chance comes at dinner an hour later. And, incredibly enough, it seems that Allison was half-right—Vanya _doesn_ _’t_ have to deal with boys. Instead, when Allison asks if she has a crush on anyone, Vanya points out a blond girl on the other side of the cafeteria, her face growing bright red as she does.

It’s so unexpected that Allison could laugh. She doesn’t; instead she watches Vanya watch the girl—Sissy, she says her name is—and mentions that Sissy looks nice. “Almost as nice as Ray,” she says, and grins when Vanya looks at her, all huge eyes and petite lips widening in a tentative smile. 

“Yeah,” Vanya says. Then she shuffles, looking away. “Um, are we… friends?”

Allison tilts her head. “If you want to be. I’d like to be your friend.”

“I haven’t had many friends,” Vanya admits, shifting her cutlery around. “People think I’m weird.”

“Well, maybe you are,” Allison says. “But so am I. Kind of hard not to be, here. Yay friends?” she asks, and raises her cup of water like a toast.

Vanya grins. “Yay friends,” she says, and raises her own cup. 

***

After dinner Dad takes the camp’s designated car to go fetch the tutor from the city. A few minutes later, Allison hears something coming from Dad’s office tent. 

Frowning, Allison walks toward it, listening intently. It’s too large to be a lizard. It sounds like… a raccoon, honestly. She leans around the flap of the tent, wondering if she needs to go get one of the Ikea Mafia guys to shoot some wildlife…

…only to realize a moment later who it must be.

“Four?” she says, and the kid hits his head on the desk. A moment later he’s weaving his way toward her, arms outstretched for a hug. Allison rolls her eyes, returning it. “Why are you in here?” she asks when he pulls away again, grinning at her.

“I just wanted to prove to myself that the old bastard was _really gone_ ,” he says, faking a somber stare. A moment later he breaks character. “And he is! Yay!” He claps loudly, grinning at her.

She frowns, looking him over. He’s high as a kite, that much is clear, with a dusty crop top on his upper half and on his lower half—

“—Wait, is that my skirt?” Allison asks, pinching the fabric.

Four looks down as well. “Oh, yeah! It’s a little out of date, I know, but it’s very breathey on the, you know, bits,” he says, doing a little twirl to make the edges flare out.

Allison can’t help it—she laughs at the ridiculousness of it all. Four smiles, seemingly glad that he could get her to laugh, and starts making a joke about Dad and his ‘cold, dead eyes—’

It’s then that One shows up, large and morose. “You two shouldn’t be in here,” he says.

“Oh, don’t worry, I was on my way out,” Four says, and makes as if to sway from the room.

One catches him by the elbow. “Drop it,” he says.

“Ex-squeeze me?” Four says.

“Drop. It,” One says, glaring down.

For a moment things are tense, as Four glares up at the big guy and One makes no move to let him go. Then Four wrenches away, muttering about how he was just _taking back things that were stolen from him to begin with_ —things like a cosmo magazine, and a baggie of gummy worms, and Dad’s watch, all of which he drops on the floor.

Allison can’t help it—she laughs again. She’s known Four for less than a week, but she already feels like she’s known him forever. She helps him put everything back where it came from, and lets One march them back to the rec room, listening all the while as Four tells her the ‘story’ of how he was arrested—a story that she’s heard about five times already, that changes every time he tells it. This time he claims that there was a little old lady outside the store and she had this mean little chihuahua, like a real VICIOUS little fucker, okay, and he would have gotten away if it hadn't _jumped up_ like it was channeling the wrath of god herself and attacked his very _face_ —

“God, do you ever shut up?” Two asks, throwing himself into a lounge chair that is so beat up that stuffing is coming out the sides.

“Nope!” Four says, too cheerful. “Now listen while I tell you about this _dog_ —”

Allison shakes her head. She’s already figured out the real story. It’s pretty basic—he was shoplifting some snacks and got caught by a security guard. When he tried to run, he tripped. That’s all. It doesn’t take a genius to put the pieces together—he’s got the standing highest record of taking nose-dives straight into holes. She just… doesn’t have the heart to break it to him that she knows.

“Where is Dad, anyway?” Two asks, cutting over Four’s jabbering.

“He’s out getting our tutor,” Allison says.

“What? Since when do we have tutors?” One asks, baffled.

“Since he decided we needed one. I may or may not have talked him into expediting the process.” Allison shrugs.

Five, who until now had been scribbling equations on the chalkboard in the corner that they normally use to keep pool scores, looks up. “You managed to convince him to do it today?” he asks. He frowns. “It wasn’t supposed to go through for another three weeks. How’d you do it?”

Allison hums, looking at her nails. “I just… said a few things, that’s all.”

Vanya stares, her eyes wide. “You just… threatened him and he gave in?” she asks.

“I prefer not to call it a threat. It was more of a… suggestion.”

“So you, like, say a rumor and it comes true?” Two asks.

“Sort of?”

Vanya is gaping now, completely in awe. “Wow,” she says. “That’s kinda… awesome. You could be a superhero. Ms. Rumor or something.”

“Wait, hold up. There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Four says, popping a goldfish cracker into his mouth that he got from god knows where. Dad’s tent, maybe. “Why don’t you, you know, do it all the time? Like, if I had a silver tongue like that you wouldn’t see me digging holes. I’d be out there getting everything I ever asked for. Like some _haute couture_ shit. Oooh, I’d die for one of those dresses, you know the ones, I saw them on a runway show once—”

It’s all been fun and games until now, hearing the others praise her for her talents. A little boost to the ego. But Four’s words—ignoring the fact that he just butchered the pronunciation of ‘haute couture’—bring the hospital back to the front of her mind, brief and sobering as ever. Allison’s mouth turns down in a frown.

“I don’t do it all the time because sometimes the things you ask for have consequences you could never imagine. Sometimes bad things happen and you just… you can’t take them back,” she says.

One frowns. Two snorts. Four is lost, talking about runway fashion from a show that stopped airing three years ago. Five has turned back to his equations, ignoring them all.

Allison turns to the last of their little group, Vanya, waiting for her to brush it aside as well. But Vanya doesn’t. She just sighs, her eyes distant. “There are things I wish I could take back, too,” she says, quiet.

Allison nods, biting her lip. “…We’ll figure it out,” she says, and her voice is strong. Sometimes she thinks it’s stronger than her, stronger than her will or her sense of right and wrong… but maybe she can learn something from Vanya, just as Vanya can learn things from her. Maybe Vanya can teach her to speak softly, carefully, honestly. Maybe, they can help each other.

… _I_ _’d like that_ , Allison thinks, and leans toward Vanya until Vanya raises her eyebrows. Allison smiles, and Vanya smiles back.

Yeah. She’d really like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never written Allison's POV before and lemme tell you... I did not expect it to be this hard ;_;


	4. Séance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got away from me, don't look at me, rip. Big warning for dissociation and PTSD.

The sheer terror of being forced into the closet is a feeling that Klaus knows intimately. He means the metaphorical closet, of course—being into guys with a father like Klaus’s was rough—but he also means the storage closet in the basement of their house. Said father would shove him into that thing kicking and screaming at the drop of a damn hat. When Klaus mouthed off at dinner, when Klaus accidentally let slip that he was into guys, when Klaus asked for a night light in his room because he was afraid of the dark… you name it, and it got him locked in that closet. Dear old daddy was _especially_ fond of that last one, though. Klaus’s persistent fear of the monsters lurking in the gloom was a problem that persisted long past the point where it could be blamed on a child’s imagination, and his father, in a wild turn of events, was NOT pleased about that. Oh, not _one little bit_. 

Ironic, really. Klaus wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, either. If it was possible to rid himself of his fear of the dark he’d have done it long ago. But no, instead he got the closet, a small, dark little place that always made him feel like he was two seconds from losing it completely.

In hindsight, that’s probably why he robbed that store.

It was late, that night. Klaus had been in the closet since nine PM—he wasn’t sure how long it had been, but he’d gone hoarse from screaming. He was beginning to come to an awful conclusion—that his old man intended to leave him there, alone and suffering, all night long. Maybe he would forget that Klaus was down there altogether, and Klaus would starve to death in a puddle of his own piss when he couldn’t hold it anymore, his fingernails scratched and bloody from trying to pry at the keyhole of the door in a vain attempt to get himself free—

Wait. The keyhole.

Klaus shifted, lifting a hand to his head and feeling around. The barrettes that his father had been so very, _very_ mad about were still there. Klaus could have laughed as he pulled one free from his curls with a shaking hand. He knew how to pick locks after teaching himself to pick the lock on his father’s liquor cabinet—even without being able to see this was going to be a piece of cake. He got to work and—

—blinked—

—and he was free. Huh, that was fast. For the first time ever, he was out of the closet before he had ‘learned his lesson’. Feeling hazy, Klaus eased the door open and—

—he was in the livingroom. His dad, predictably, had fallen asleep in front of the TV and—

—he was on the street. But he was just home. Where—

—a store. One of those open-all-night convenience stores. Klaus raised a hand, touching the bags of bread on the shelf. He felt… disconnected. Distant. Like he was ghosting through his life, and nothing was real. The store, the street, the livingroom—was any of it real? Was he actually here? Or was he still there, still stuck in that cramped little place with no company but his own screams echoing through the darkness, the old padding on the walls soaking up his voice almost before he could get it out past his tongue—

He wasn’t consciously aware of taking a loaf of bread off the shelf. All he knew was that he wanted to feel something, to come back to himself. He want to feel ALIVE and AWAKE and HERE, _not_ there. He was out, he was out—why couldn’t he _tell_? Why didn’t he _feel free_?

He swallowed, and took a step toward the door. And then another. And another. And then the security guard was yelling at him, and the store manager was threatening to call the cops, and Klaus just kept going, his numb feet taking flight as he waited to feel alive, to feel free, the bread clutched to his chest like it was the only thing keeping him sane and—

It was his shoelaces that tripped him up. One moment he was running and the next he was sprawled on the asphalt, the security guard towering over him. He rolled onto his back and listened to the sirens coming closer and thought about how pissed his dad was going to be and just like that he started laughing and could not stop. He laughed all the way to the police station.

He got his sentence two weeks later. His father was seething, spitting mad—Klaus gave him a salute from the front of the court room, grinning at the old man’s red face and balled fists. So far from home for so long… he was going to miss the ol’ bastard.

 _Not_. 

With a snort, Klaus allowed himself to be hauled away. Camp Green Lake would probably be better than the closet, anyway.

***

Day fourteen of the campers’ collective sentence dawns bright and early, and Klaus, if anyone were to ask, would say that he’s living his best life. Dicks, drugs, debutantes… boy, he’s got it all. Well, minus the dicks and debutantes, anyway. And with an abundance of drugs to make up the difference, of course. Don’t ask how—a girl never shares her secrets. All you need to know is that he’s been vibing for all fourteen days straight and he doesn’t plan to stop any time soon.

You only live once, after all. 

Today he begins his day the same way he has for the past two weeks—startled from dreamland and into the waking world by the siren that wails over the loudspeakers like the cries of the damned being ferried into Hades. His body jerks on instinct, rolling him right off the edge of his bunk, where he hits the floor with a yelp. The big guy is already up, busy shaking people awake, and Klaus flops onto his back on the floor, contemplating a few more Zs before it’s time to get up.

Alas, it’s not to be. Big guy notices him next, coming around the bunk. He hauls Klaus to his feet via two big, meaty hands on his skinny biceps, and Klaus blinks as the world tilts… tilts… tilts… and finally clicks into place.

“Time to get your head in the game,” One says, and claps him so hard on the shoulder that Klaus nearly pitches straight back into his bunk.

“Yessir,” Klaus says, yawning widely and wandering over to his cubby on the other side of the tent. He’s followed by a trail of grunts and groans and people telling him to, quote, ‘put some damn pants on, already’ but if they didn’t want him sleeping in his skivvies they should have thought of that before making the entire damn desert a bajillion degrees. Doesn’t matter if it drops thirty degrees at night—a hundred and ten minus thirty is still a sweat-inducing eighty, and Klaus is _not_ about that.

He reaches his cubby a moment later, and feels around with his eyes half closed until he finds the cool cylinder of the sharpie he swiped from the secretary’s desk. He pulls it out and uncaps it with his teeth, squinting at his right palm before he starts to trace the letters that yesterday’s hole had nearly sweat off. H-E-L-L-O he goes, and frowns at the slight wiggle to the lines. 

He switches the marker to his other hand, his non-dominant hand, and starts on the letters there. G-O-O-D- _ugh_. The more awake he gets the harder his hands shake. Unfortunate.

He needs to get to his stash.

He finishes up—B-Y-E—and tosses the sharpie away, shaking out his hands and rolling his neck side to side. He thinks about doing some yoga stretches, but the itch under his skin is starting to prickle unpleasantly and he doesn’t have much time before it becomes too much to ignore. He needs to distract the others.

He hums, shoving his feet into his socks—pink, thank you very much—and then his coveralls—orange, ugh, a color that only Three can pull off—and then, taking a deep breath, announces to the tent: “Hang on—I’m getting a feeling.”

The little murder child, Five, rolls his eyes. “Is it a thought trying to make it to your brain?” he asks, acerbic.

Klaus ignores that, pressing his fingers to his temples and pretending to focus intently on the thin air beside Five. “I’m sensing… ghosts. Two, no, _three_ of them.”

One, across the room, lets out a very put-upon sigh. “Do you ever stop asking for attention?” he asks, and doesn’t wait for an answer. “Get a move on, Four. We don’t have time for your games.”

“No, no, I’m serious!” Klaus says back, focusing harder. “The ghosts… they’re telling me Five’s name is… Frederick. No no, wait… Frances?”

Five pauses, giving him a sweeping look that makes him feel like a bug under a microscope. “Why are you assuming my name starts with an F?” he asks.

“Well because… ffffive… uh… yeah okay I see how dumb that is now.” Klaus drops his hands to his sides. The rest of the campers have mostly finished with their morning routines, and have started drifting toward the cafeteria for breakfast. Klaus hangs back, watching them from the corner of his eye and pretending to fiddle with some things in his cubby.

Five is the last out, sauntering toward the tent flap. “You coming, Séance?” he asks, with half a glance back.

“Eh, I’ll catch up,” Klaus says, waving him off.

He’s alone a moment later. Just the way he likes it. He grins, humming to himself as he slinks over to one of the sandbags holding down the tent poles. He pokes around inside it until he unearths a little baggie. 

Bingo. Ah, beautiful pills, how he’s missed you. He raises the baggie to his lips and presses a quick kiss to it before he peels open the ziplock and shakes out two pills into his Hello palm. Sweet ambrosia, decadence of the gods, here he _comes_.

He’s just raising the pills to his mouth to take them dry when a (large) hand suddenly comes down and takes him by the wrist.

For the love of all that is holy. “Aw, come on, One, don’t be a prude,” Klaus says, turning with a pout.

It’s not One. It’s not even a camper. Instead, Klaus comes face to face with one of the security guards, the chubby dude one with the beard that evokes thoughts of small mammals.

…Well, nuts.

***

“Come on. Really, man?”

The security guard doesn’t so much as blink at Klaus’s protests about being handcuffed to the chair. Klaus squirms for a moment—he hasn’t had a chance to pee yet, and something about getting strapped down always makes the urge get worse. 

The place they’re in is a strange one. It’s one of those portable buildings, one with a clunky air-conditioning unit rattling in the cardboard-covered window that doesn’t seem to have any effect on the state of air in the room. There’s a single weak light in a reinforced case overhead, illuminating walls that are completely bare, and there is no furniture aside from a card table and the plastic chair that Klaus is being oh-so-kindly handcuffed to.

“Oooh, wait, a little tighter,” Klaus says, as Man-Guard closes the second cuff ring around his wrist. 

The man sighs, staring at the ceiling for a long moment with the look of someone who isn’t paid nearly enough for this. His partner, Lady-Guard, has her arms crossed as she stands in front of them, tapping her long fingernails impatiently against her biceps. She waits until Man-Guard is finished with the cuffs and standing beside her before she leans down face to face with Klaus. Klaus blinks, wondering if she’s got eyebrows somewhere behind those severe bangs.

“Where did you get these?” she asks, holding up Klaus’s baggie.

“Never seen ‘em before in my life,” Klaus says instantly. 

“We caught you with them literally in your hand,” Man-Guard says, unimpressed.

“That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I had my eyes closed.”

Lady-Guard presses her lips together. She’s clearly the less patient of the two—if it were just Man-Guard alone Klaus would have had a little wriggle room, maybe even enough to wriggle himself right out of this predicament. But with Lady-Guard? Who, boy.

“Here’s how this is gonna go. You,” she says, and Klaus goes cross-eyed at her fingers as she snaps them in his face. “Have a hole to dig. The two of us? We’ve got all day to let you sit and steam in here. We’ve got the time. So you can either help yourself and tell us what we want to know now so you can get to it, or you can sit here for the next seven hours while we sweat it out of you, miss dinner while you’re out there digging, and suffer for the rest of the week with no shower tokens.”

Klaus suppresses a snort. If that’s how they want to play it then he’s game. He knows the drill by now—he’s only done this same song and dance with about a hundred guards and correctional officers and, oh yeah, not to mention dear old daddy-o. He knows they’re not going to get anything out of him.

Man-Guard, as if reading his mind, says, “This isn’t going to get us anywhere. Let’s just go search the tents.” 

Klaus rolls his head back, lounging. “Tell me what you find,” he says, bored. If they leave him alone he’ll have some time to work at the cuffs—he might even be able to give them the slip. But, then again, what’s he going to do if he manages to get free? Go dig a hole? He needs to capitalize on this time off from digging. Best to just hang tight, he figures.

Until the guards turn and begin to file out of the room, the man after the lady, anyway. It’s right then, as Man-Guard reaches for the light switch as if on instinct, turning out the light, that Klaus realizes what a _colossal mistake he_ _’s made_.

“Wait,” Klaus says, sitting up a little straighter as the shadows begin to creep up the walls. “Wait, hold on—you’re adults, I’m nearly an adult, we can talk about this!”

“You had your chance,” Man-Guard says, and just like that he pulls the door closed behind him, pitching Klaus into darkness.

***

Klaus isn’t a fan of small spaces. Or dim lighting. Or not being able to move. Or being stone-cold sober.

The good news is that despite all of that, this place isn’t like the basement closet, not really. It’s hot, almost boiling, and it doesn’t have the weirdly permanent smell of freezer burn that comes from the giant freezer Klaus’s father keeps in the basement proper. The bad news… well. The bad news is that Klaus’s brain literally doesn’t care about the differences. For all intents and purposes, he’s back in the closet, arms strapped down by belts, waiting on his father to come and let him out.

No. No, no, no. He’s got to stay present, stay in the moment. With a whine, Klaus forces his lungs to move. He winds up kind of gulping at the air instead of breathing, but that’s fine. He can work with that. Just so long as he stays present, and remembers where he is, everything will be _just fine_. 

Swallowing, Klaus pulls at the cuffs, letting them bite into his wrists a little. His hands are shaking too hard to try and wriggle free, and he doesn’t have a hairpin this time around to try and pick the locks. He keeps his eyes wide, trying to make sense of the shadows all around him. “See?” he says, though he really doesn’t. “It’s no big deal! Just like that time Ryder tied you to the bed! You remember that, huh? Huh? You enjoyed that!”

The darkness doesn’t respond. It doesn’t let up. His voice fills the cramped space for a split second and then peters out, leaving him alone alone alone.

As torture goes, it’s a slow simmer. At some point, Klaus hears the truck start up outside somewhere. Must be time for the campers’ first water break of the day. Or maybe it’s lunch time already. Or maybe the night has passed and it’s morning again. Maybe he’s been in here for days now. It’s hard to tell.

Klaus shifts, his head tilting forward. His brain is foggy, caught somewhere between Here and There. The secretary, Dot, came by to give him a bottle of water some time ago, smiling sadly as he begged her to find a key and uncuff him, but other than that it’s just been shadows and heat and memory and not much reprieve from any of them at all. 

He talks to himself, on and off. He isn’t always sure when the words are in his head or not. That’s a bad sign, he’s pretty sure, but he can’t remember what it’s a bad sign _of_ and he’s not thinking clearly enough to figure it out. He doesn’t think it matters much, anyway. He’s pretty sure he’s been losing chunks of time but it’s impossible to tell. Nothing changes, nothing moves—there isn’t anyone here, no one and nothing but his own drifting body.

Until, suddenly, there is.

Klaus flinches, a full-body shudder. His hands stop short at the ends of the handcuff chains, and he twitches again afterward at the pain. His muscles are trembling just slightly, the itch under his skin the only thing that feels real—except, that is, for the figure in the darkness with him. He closed his eyes to an empty room and opened them again to a monster, standing hunched at the other end of the room by the door.

“No,” he says, and he’s pretty sure he’s saying it aloud. “Oh, no, no no no, please, don’t hurt me oh _god_ —”

“Hey, shhh, it’s okay,” the monster says back.

Klaus flinches again at the voice. It’s much higher than he thought a monster would sound. He’s squeezed his eyes closed, he finds—he squints one open to look. 

The monster is closer now, and it’s straightened up—it’s not as large as it seemed from across the room, Klaus finds. Klaus wheezes out a pitchy laugh that is entirely at odds with the situation. His head is spinning so bad from the fright, his hands _shaking_ —he feels like he just stepped off a roller coaster and got dunked in a tank of ice water.

The monster takes another step, but this time it’s to the side, edging slowly around Klaus and his chair. Klaus leans away as far as he can, willing his legs to move so he can scoot away.

They don’t. Damn traitors.

Another step. Another. Another. And suddenly the monster is at the window, reaching up for the cardboard taped into the pane and picking at a corner.

For a moment everything is silent except for Klaus’s racing heart and the sound of someone trying to pull up old tape with their fingernails. Then the tape comes free with a thin ripping noise and light _floods the room_.

Klaus winces backwards, attempting to throw an arm over his eyes and realizing once again that his wrists are cuffed down. He squints, instead, peering through his eyelashes. It’s not really a flood, he realizes, as his eyes slowly adjust. The monster just folded up the corner of the cardboard to let in a beam of sunlight, really, but it’s enough. Enough to shove back the feeling of the closet encroaching on Klaus’s mind. Enough to ease the fright burning through his veins. Enough to see the monster clearly.

Enough to realize that the monster isn’t a monster at all, but a short Asian kid in a camper’s orange jumpsuit.

Klaus gapes, his mouth hanging open. There’s no way this is real. He’s having a bad trip, or a stress-induced hallucination, or _something_. Wouldn’t exactly be the first time. He shakes himself, rattling his head around in the hopes that it’ll jog his brain back into place.

The kid is still there when he looks up.

Which, okay, fine. Klaus has made peace with weirder things. Like that time he tried to wax his ass with chocolate pudding—it was so painful but also kind of good at the same time? Like who knew pain like that could be a turn-on?

…Anyway. The point is, Klaus is no stranger to weirdness. He can _definitely_ find something to talk to a hallucination about.

“Hi,” he says, and his voice only shakes a little. “What’s your name?”

The kid considers this for a moment. Then they (he?) seem to come to a decision. 

“I’m Ben,” he says. “Want some company?”

***

Klaus is in the middle of telling his new friend about the closet when a key rattles in the lock. Klaus glances toward the door, and by the time he looks back at his friend, the hallucination has disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the card table pressed up against the wall.

Klaus sighs. Figures. He turns his head toward the door just in time to watch it swing open, revealing Lady-Guard and her scruffy buddy. “You idiot! You didn’t lock the door!” she’s saying now, voice pinched.

“What?” Man-Guard says back. “I did, I know I did—” 

Lady-Guard gives the door a wriggle. “Well you could have fooled me,” she says.

Ignoring her, Man-Guard peers over her shoulder and takes in Klaus, who raises his fingers in a little wave. “Oh, thank god, you’re still here,” Man-Guard says, shoulders wilting slightly in relief.

“In all my sweaty glory,” Klaus says, and grins. It’s thin, and uneven, and his arm is twitching something fierce, but who is he if not a charmer? 

Lady-Guard isn’t amused. She stalks in, ignoring them both, and dumps a handful of little baggies on the table. Klaus winces as she gestures to them. “We’ve swept the compound,” she says. “You’ve got no more drugs.”

“So… do I get to go?” Klaus asks.

Lady-Guard raises her lip in a snarl, stalking toward him. “Not so fast,” she says.

Klaus groans, tipping backward and sliding down until the back of his head touches the chair, elbows akimbo. “Come on, you’ve got the drugs,” he says, a whine in his voice. “Can’t we just call it a day?”

“We want to know where you got them. Do we know that? No. Now tell us where you got them or _so help me_ —”

Klaus’s eyes go wide as she raises a hand, clearly intending to slap him backhand across the face. Right then, however—just before her acrylic nails make contact—the door creaks open again and a really small man in a janitor’s uniform pokes his head inside.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says, seemingly unfazed about the scene in front of him. “But I need you to clear out so I can clean this room.”

Lady-Guard lets out a sigh that sounds rather like the snort of a bull, lowering her hand. “Fine,” she says. “You’re off the hook for today, kid. But if we catch so much as a _whiff_ of contraband in your possession again…”

“Yes, ma’am,” Klaus says, the threat more than clear. He holds himself still as Man-Guard strides forward to undo the cuffs, standing on shaky legs once he’s free.

“Get out of here and dig your hole,” says Man-Guard, and Klaus backs out of the room, saluting as he goes.

The last thing he sees before the door closes is movement under the card table. He figures he must have imagined it.

***

Nearly everyone is done digging by the time Klaus gets a shovel and walks out to their current dig site. He grins, wriggling his brows as heads rise to watch him cross the last of the distance between them.

“Thought you got booted off the island,” Two says, leaning on his shovel. The little gremlin girl is beside him, popping a piece of chewing gum that she got god knows where.

“Yeah, well, I’m too pretty to get rid of,” Klaus says. 

The big guy, who seems to be ‘supervising’, rolls his eyes. “Less talking more digging,” he says. “You’re already late, you don’t want to miss dinner.” Klaus doesn’t mention the fact that he didn’t exactly get breakfast or lunch, just sets his shovel to the earth and starts to dig.

It does not go well. He’s still hella shaken up, his arms noodly as he tries to lift shovelfuls of dirt. The last of the campers around him finish up in the next half hour, leaving just him and One out in the unrelenting heat. He’s feeling so bad right now that he doesn’t even have the energy to complain.

“So… what happened to you, anyway?” One says, after a while.

Klaus grunts. “Guards found my stash,” he says, and then pauses to wipe sweat from his eyes with the collar of his coveralls. God, digging was so much easier to do with some Adderall. He groans, fanning his face for a moment. “Is it just me or is it hotter than it should be?”

One hums. “The sun will set soon. Drink some water.”

Water. Right. Klaus sips from his canteen, wincing a little at the way his empty stomach churns at the intrusion. He pulls a face. 

“Come on, back at it,” One says, in what he probably means to be an encouraging voice. 

Welp. Klaus sticks his shovel into the sand once more, ignoring the shake in his arms and the way the shovel tilts dangerously as he raises it. He can do this. He can totally do this.

“…I can’t do this,” he says, two minutes later. He’s leaning on the edge of his hole like his knees will give out if he pushes away from it, because that’s what it feels like they’re going to do. He can barely contain the tremors in his arms anymore, and every sip of water he takes threatens to come back up.

With a sigh, One pushes himself to his feet and comes to peer into Klaus’s hole. “Oh, come on,” he says. “Just three more feet to go.”

“Easy for you to say,” Klaus mumbles. “Your holes are like half your size.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t rot your body with drugs you wouldn’t have such a hard time,” One reasons, in a snide voice.

…Klaus ignores him after that. _Just keep going_ , he thinks to himself.

It takes longer than usual, but Klaus makes it to the bottom of the hole eventually. The rhythm of shovel down, shovel up, shovel down, shovel up feels like it’s embedded in Klaus’s bones by the time One deems his hole deep enough. They’ve missed Group and half of dinner by the time they make it back to camp, Klaus dragging his shovel at his side, but at least they made it back. Klaus wasn’t actually sure he was going to survive that last fifteen minutes—he thought he was going to die, down at the bottom of that hole. But he made it! Yay!

He groans aloud as he falls into his spot at the Umbrella Tent table, letting his head clunk onto the plastic tabletop. A moment later a hand rests on his shoulder—he raises his face to see Mom, holding a tray for him. “Eat up, you need to keep your strength up,” she says, smiling down at him.

“Thanks, Mom,” Klaus says, and takes the tray. Unfortunately, however, try as he might he can’t get anything down. He takes one bite and nearly gags on it. With a sigh he sets about pushing his food around his tray, tilting his head to the side until it’s resting on the person beside him.

It’s Two, he finds out a moment later, when a hand presses to his forehead and Two’s voice says, “You’re hot.”

“Why thank you,” Klaus says back, a knee-jerk response.

Two flicks him. “No, you weirdo, I mean you have a fever.”

“Oh.”

It’s not really surprising, when Klaus thinks about it. No drugs + hard labor out in the sun = Klaus not feeling very good. Stands to reason that he’d be hotter than normal. He figures a good nights sleep will fix him right up.

Except it doesn’t. He can’t still his twitching limbs, and by midnight has given in to the impulse to go looking for drugs. He’s like a squirrel, got nuts all over the place—the guards must have missed one or two, right?

Only they didn’t. He can’t find anything. They really did manage to clean him out. He sighs, resting his head against the relatively cool surface of the cubbies in the back of the tent. He can get more—he has connections, even here—but it’ll take some time to get, and he should let the heat die down a little before he does.

He goes back to bed, and lies there, awake and twitching, until the wake-up call goes off.

It’s worse, now that morning is here. His stomach literally rolls inside him at the idea of food, and he very nearly has to make a run for the bathrooms. Even water sets him off, he finds, as he stares into his canteen with haunted eyes. A quick appeal to Dad gets him nowhere—apparently a little nausea isn’t going to get him out of digging, no _sir_. He swallows and doesn’t talk as they grab their shovels to head off into the desert, just trying to conserve energy. He doesn’t even stop to write out his HELLO/GOODBYE, that’s how bad he’s feeling.

No one seems to notice that he isn’t his usual self, he finds. They’re all converging into groups, chatting and complaining like they always do. Normally he’d fall into step with whoever was closest and talk to them, but without his initiation no one thinks to invite him over. He can’t say it doesn’t hurt—it kind of does. But he’s feeling so miserable already that he can’t find it in himself to really care. It’s not like they’re obligated to like him. Heck, he doesn’t really like himself so much, either.

He pushes this aside as they come up on today’s section of the lake bed, unable to put energy into hating himself when he has a hole to dig. He just needs to get through this hole and then he can go and lay the heck down.

Alas, it’s easier said than done. He tries to keep pace with the others, measuring by the size of their dirt piles, but he keeps zoning out and coming back to find that his shaking hands have stopped moving. He shakes himself, gritting his teeth as the morning wears on. He doesn’t pause to drink, too nauseous still.

That, he finds out soon enough, is a _mistake_.

He realizes this when time starts to go funky. One moment he’s in his hole, bearing down on his shovel, and the next he’s out in the desert, walking. He doesn’t remember where he wanted to go, or if he told anybody he was going—he’s moving but with no destination, no origination, no _thought_. 

He comes to a stop, breath thick in his dry throat. His skin is slick with drying sweat, the sun beating down on his curly hair and the back of his bare neck. He thinks that maybe he should turn around, find the other campers, but the idea of moving now that he’s stopped feels like pushing a boulder up a hill. He stares down at his boots, swaying where he stands. Everything around him is so still, the sand unmarked, as if it hasn’t seen a living thing in a hundred years. When he raises his eyes to the distance, however, it’s like the whole world comes to life—the heat is coming off the sand in great, rolling waves that warp the very landscape itself, creating mirages and tricks of the eye. He can’t see any campers. He can’t see the camp. All he sees is what could be a lone tree or a figure or nothing at all, out far, far in the distance.

Klaus breathes, his lungs heavy in his chest. The sun is so hot. He feels like he’s coming apart at the seams. Black spots are appearing at the corners of his vision. He needs to go there, but he doesn’t know where ‘there’ is. He’s not going to make it, wherever it happens to be. 

“I think I’m gonna pass out,” he says, to no one in particular, just before he does.

***

“Hey, come on, man. Come on. Wake up.”

Klaus whines in the back of his throat. Waking is hard, but he’s like ninety percent sure there’s something he needs to do, and that requires being awake. He shifts, struggling to open his eyes.

The voice above him does not relent. “I’m serious, you’ve got to wake up,” it says.

His throat is so dry—he feels like he’s a scarecrow, just stuffed full of straw. Klaus swallows, which doesn’t help, and then lets his mouth fall slack, too tired to do anything else. He could drift off again just like this—in fact, he thinks he will. He deserves some sleep, thank you very much.

“Come on. I’m serious, dude, _please_.”

Fiiine. If the voice is going to be so damn insistent… god. Can’t let a guy just doze in peace, can it? Sigh.

Klaus hums, scrunching his eyes up for a moment before he squints one open. He doesn’t focus much on anything, and it slips closed again soon enough, but maybe that will be enough for the voice.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Come on.”

Something grabs Klaus’s arm, pulling. He moans, wriggling until it lets go. The voice is muttering something under its breath now, but Klaus doesn’t pay it any mind—he’s too busy lying prone and letting the heat wash over him. Heat and desert and something… off in the distance… hm. 

“I had the strangest dream,” he mumbles to himself, and then coughs as the mumbling disturbs the sand that he’s lying on. 

“What about this—if you sit up I’ll give you some water,” the voice says, changing tact.

Klaus considers that. Water sounds… really nice right about now. It’s so hot. His throat is _so dry_.

“Yeah okay,” he says, and squeezes his consciousness down into his arms. He swallows again, his fingers twitching. His arms are like noodles as he drags first one and then the other up to chest-height, palms pressed flat against the sand. “Okay, Klaus,” he says—or maybe he just thinks it, he’s not sure anymore. “You can do this. You LARPed in winter. You survived Great Aunt Gretchen’s knitting lessons. And you once… wore a sarong… to a school dance… and danced with a shitload of people!”

“That is… weirdly specific,” the voice says, but Klaus ignores it, putting all his energy instead into pushing with all his might. 

He makes it halfway up before his arms begin to shake. He wheezes, his breath catching in his throat. This isn’t gonna work, he’s not gonna make it, oh, lord, go on without him—

“Oh, for fuck’s _sake_.”

Klaus yelps as suddenly he’s vertical, all the blood rushing from his head. His arm is around something firm, holding him upright. He hums for a moment, feeling at whatever it is with his free hand. 

“Stop poking me and move your feet,” the voice says, much closer now. “We need to get out of the sun.”

“No argument here,” Klaus says. He cracks one eye open, and then the other, blinking at the harsh sunlight refracting off the sand below. It’s a struggle to focus, but once he does he turns his gaze to the side, peering down his nose toward the voice.

“Oh. You again. Fancy seeing you here,” he says.

The hallucination of the Asian boy frowns. “Yeah, fancy that. What are you doing out here, anyway?” he asks. “Why aren’t you with the Umbrella Tent campers?”

Klaus hums, electing to ignore those questions on account of the fact that he can’t really remember, and also because he keeps getting distracted by the fact that the hallucination seems so real. “You’re really solid,” he says, hoping to convey how impressed he is.

“Thanks?” the hallucination says.

Klaus tries to nod, and winds up making himself dizzy. He tips his head forward, wobbling on his feet. “You’re welcome,” he says, and the words come out in a slur. His head feels like soup.

“Whoa, hey. Are you okay?”

“Mmm. Debatable. I feel like I’m dying but that’s… that’s just a Tuesday, really.”

“…You are so weird.”

Klaus snickers. “You have no idea.”

It’s slow going from there. Klaus talks, when he thinks to do it—and moves his feet, when he thinks to do that—and the hallucination keeps saying things like “Just a little farther, okay, you can lay down soon,” even though Klaus is pretty sure they’ve been wandering around for at least a year. He feels disconnected from his body, like he’s not really inhabiting it. Everything looks the same no matter how long they walk and—

—Klaus blinks. There are buildings up ahead. He’s sitting down, now, and the hallucination is nowhere to be seen. He tries to swallow and wonders if it was ever there at all—

—Blink. He’s inside, in a room that is significantly cooler than it was outside. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Number Four,” says a voice, a different voice this time, much less friendly than the hallucination. Klaus turns his head, and catches sight of a very young-looking woman with dark skin, long, dark hair, and a very sour expression on her face. She’s standing above him, staring down as if from the heavens. 

“...God?” Klaus asks, and the woman’s face goes even more pinched. She huffs, striding away to open a cabinet. 

Klaus follows her with his eyes, not comprehending. “You’re shorter than I imagined you’d be,” he says, rolling his head around on the soft-ish thing he’s lying on.

The not-friendly voice harrumphs, and Klaus turns a little farther to find a man with short grey hair, an impeccably neat mustache, and a monocle standing beside him. “Good grief, Number Four, get yourself together,” he says.

Klaus pouts. Rude. Before he can say anything else, however, he—

—blinks—

—and both of the adults are gone, and instead there’s a boy with curly blond hair sitting beside him, humming softly.

Klaus stares for a moment. He feels a lot better than he did—the scarecrow feeling is gone, as is the soupy feeling in his head and the noodly feelings in his arms. Noodle soup… with straw? Hm. Sounds… bad.

He snorts to himself, then groans at the rasp in his throat. The boy stops humming at the noise, blinking down. Klaus ignores him for a moment, taking stock of his body. There’s something cool resting against the back of his neck and another in each of his armpits, and when he shifts he realizes there’s a wet rag on his forehead. Weird.

“Are you awake for good?” the boy asks, eyeing him.

“…Are you a hallucination, too?” Klaus asks, instead of answering.

The boy furrows his brows. “Uh. Last I checked, no.”

“Then who are you? Where did God go?”

“’God’,” the boy says, making air quotes with his fingers, “Is the camp nurse, and she’s just around the corner. Want me to get her?”

“Ugh, no,” Klaus says. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“I don’t think she likes anyone very much,” the boy says seriously. Then he grins, his teeth all straight except one on the side that is endearingly crooked. “But hey, as long as you’re here do you want a popsicle?”

“Good lord, do I ever,” Klaus says, and levers himself up on his elbows.

He learns, as he sucks on a blue vaguely-but-not-quite-raspberry-flavored popsicle, that he’d gotten heat exhaustion and passed out. They’d given him an IV of fluids and some ice packs and called it a day, leaving Dave, here, to sit with him until he came around. Dave, he learns, was a boy scout, and ROTC, and apparently likes to help out in the infirmary when they need extra hands. Oh, and he’d gotten sent to camp because his uncle told him to punch a gay man they ran into at a diner and he did it. 

Klaus raises his eyebrows at that, wondering if he needs to speed things up and get out of here before he, too, gets punched in the face. He’s not exactly quiet about being queer—the eyeliner generally gives it away pretty fast. He decides that they’re okay, though, when he gets a look at Dave’s expression. Kid feels bad about what he did, that much is clear. 

“I just… my family is so proud of who they are, so righteous, it was hard to realize that they could be wrong, you know?” Dave is saying now. Then he laughs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t be dumping this on you. We just met—my mama would be having a fit about my manners.”

“No, no—you’re fine,” Klaus says, and it might just be the lingering effects of the heat and the lack of drugs and the shitty couple of days he’s had, but Dave seems like the nicest person he’s ever met in his entire damn life. Whatever bullshit his uncle pulled to get him to hit that guy, it must have been intense.

He says so, and Dave laughs, a bright, beautiful sound. If Klaus could maybe just stay here forever, in this tiny little room, with nothing to eat but popsicles and no company but Dave, he’d be more than content.

***

In the end he’s only there another hour. God comes back and checks him over, deeming him fit to leave. He gets the rest of the day off from digging, and the day after as well because it’s their ‘weekend’ off day, but then he’ll be right back to it because there’s no rest for the wicked. He waves at Dave as he makes his way out, and Dave waves back, a dorky grin on his face. 

It’s long past dinner, but Mom is more than happy to whip up a tray of beans for Klaus when he asks. He sits alone and eats what he can, which isn’t much because he’s still a little nauseous, but it’s enough to quell the ache in his stomach so he’ll take it. He’s exhausted by the time he’s done, which seems unfair because he spent a good chunk of the day literally unconscious, but whatever. He has permission to skip tutoring so he does, falling face first into bed.

The next day the wake-up call goes off, and Klaus startles awake, his heart pounding in his chest, before he drags his pillow over his face and groans. God, he’s so tired… why can’t the world just stop for one day and let him rest?! He rolls over, burying his head under his sheets. 

Unfortunately for him, no one else has gotten the memo that he’s done with this shit. The next thing he knows, One is there, hauling him to his feet like it’s any other day. “Let’s make today a good one,” he says, and smacks Klaus on the back so hard that Klaus staggers.

From there Klaus goes through his normal morning routine. He wanders over to his cubby, peels off the bandage from the crook of his elbow, and pulls out his sharpie. The words on his palms are almost completely gone, but a few careful strokes and it’s like nothing at all happened, like his interrogation and the heat exhaustion and his time in the infirmary were all just a figment of his imagination, like he’s picking up right where he left off. He’s willing to bet that no one even noticed he was gone. Well, no one except Dr. Pogo, the tutor that Dad hired on. The little old man comes up to Klaus just after breakfast, all big monkey-like ears and scruffy eyebrows and dainty little spectacles, and asks if he’d like to make up the tutoring session he missed yesterday. 

Klaus sighs, watching the others head out toward the rec room to mess around and waste their day off. No one looks back toward him, and he scratches aimlessly at the elbow that had the IV in it. That’s fine, honestly it is—he doesn’t need the scrutiny. Nor does he need their attention. He can survive without it. “Why not,” he says, gritting his teeth, and follows Pogo into the room they hold Group in.

If he thought he’d feel better after tutoring, he’d be what clinicians would call ‘dead wrong’. It’s all gibberish, made all the worse by the fact that he’s still feeling a little sick and twitchy. He knows he’s behind—he stopped applying himself years ago, choosing instead to ‘rot his brain with drugs’, as One would say. It’s frustrating, to see just how far behind he is, how much work he’d have to do if he wanted to catch up. It makes him not want to try—why dig himself out of this hole when he doesn’t have to? He already digs every day for real, so honestly what’s the point?

He knows Pogo is disappointed by the time they’re done, but he can’t find it in him to care. It’s his own life he’s sabotaging, so the doctor can get off his high horse already. He sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. He has to report to the infirmary before dinner for a drug test. They’ve informed him that he’ll have two weeks added to his sentence for every drug test he fails, which sucks because all he really wants to do right now is get high. He feels so uncomfortable in his own skin when he’s sober that it’s unreal. He debates breaking into the security room for the pills that were confiscated and getting high anyway, standing still with his hands over his eyes for a long, strained moment.

…A haircut, he decides. He’ll put off getting high until he’s had a haircut, and then he’ll decide.

He heads into Dad’s tent, plopping himself down on the chair in the corner. The campers aren’t allowed to have razors or scissors, so Sir Hargreeves, magnanimous bastard that he is, offers haircuts for all the campers on their off day every two weeks. The campers can choose to go or to not go, but it’s offered either way, and Klaus has decided that fuck it, he needs to talk to Dad.

He nearly loses his nerve when the old man pulls out a pair of haircutting scissors, so sharp that they’re liable to slit his throat if he sneezes at the wrong time. He swallows, settling back into the chair. Just gotta get this over with. 

Klaus clears his throat. Here goes nothing.

“You’re a counselor,” he says.

Dad clicks his tongue, impatient as always. “I am.”

“So council me, give me some advice. Tell me what I need to hear.”

“I have my doubts that anything I say will get through that thick skull of yours, Number Four, but very well, I will attempt it.” The old man turns Klaus’s head forcefully to the side, sliding a comb through his curls. “For starters, you are here for a reason. This would be obvious to most people, but you have a tendency to overlook your own actions and the consequences thereof. You refuse to take responsibility for your own life, refuse to live up to your own potential, and, most of all, refuse to acknowledge the people who are trying to help you make something of your life. You’re callous, Number Four—you can’t see the sacrifices that people have made for you.”

Klaus opens his mouth to refute that, but the old man is on a roll now, going on about Klaus’s drug use and his abysmal attempts in school and blah, blah blah, blah blah. Klaus rolls his eyes. This? This was a mistake. He’s made up his mind—he’s definitely going to go get high.

Or he would, if One didn’t caught him on his way to get his pills back.

“Aren’t you tired of doing this to yourself?” One asks. 

“God, you sound just like Dad,” Klaus groans, too strung out to deal with anything else today. 

One pouts, a funny expression on a guy so big. “Well, maybe Sir Hargreeves is right, have you ever thought about that? It’s not good for you—”

“You have no idea what’s good for me!” Klaus bursts out. “You don’t know my life and neither does Dad! You think you know so much about me, but you don’t know anything!”

“Jeez, okay. I was just trying to help,” One says, voice stilted, and leaves Klaus alone.

Klaus simmers for a moment, dragging his hands through his hair. He feels bad for yelling. One is right—it’s not good for him. He can’t, he’s not going to get high. He just—he needs to talk to someone or he’s going to _explode_.

Thankfully he doesn’t have to look long. He finds Five sitting in the shade at the front of the rec center, watching the trio of Swedish guards from a distance. Unthankfully, Klaus realizes too late that Five has his broken doll in his breast pocket and he’s talking to her in a low, conspiratorial voice. The moment Klaus interrupts, Five snaps at him, and Klaus backs off with his hands in the air.

The next person he runs into is Two, throwing darts lazily at the dartboard at the back of the rec room, sans his little mini-me. He’s at least willing to listen as Klaus rambles for a while about the mirage in the desert and the hallucination of the Asian kid he keeps having, but soon enough Two loses patience with Klaus like everybody does.

“Do you ever shut up?” he asks, throwing the darts down on the table and stalking off.

Klaus sighs. So much for that. He turns around, taking in the empty room—everyone must be hanging out in one of the Group tents. He scratches at his arm again. He still feels so itchy and gross, and he doesn’t have any shower tokens right now, and no one wants to talk to him, and christ, why does being sober always have to feel like the entire sky is coming down to _suffocate him_ —

—but then, as if the heavens heard Klaus’s call, there’s Dave, walking over from the infirmary. “Hey, I was looking for you,” he says, stopping in front of Klaus.

“For moi?” Klaus asks, pointing at his own chest.

“Yeah, silly. I wanted to see if you were feeling any better.”

It’s not a lot, but it’s _so much_ at the same time. Someone seeking him out, intentionally, to ask him how he’s feeling? Christ. No one has bothered to do that in… god. 

Klaus shifts, ducking his head a little. It’s weird, having someone actually _look_ at him. He can’t take having Dave look at him head on like this. 

Time to deflect. “I’m feeling much better now that you’re here,” he says, and throws in a theatrical wink.

Dave smiles. “I appreciate that, but please, be honest.”

Klaus holds up his hands, HELLO and GOODBYE. “Okay, okay. Just…” He pauses, struggling to find words to explain how hard it is to be sober and in the moment, how much it hurts just to be real sometimes. He waivers, biting his lip. “…I don’t know. I don’t know how to…”

He trails off, but Dave, bless him, is nodding along as if he understands exactly. “Want to know my secret for it?” he asks.

“God, do I ever,” Klaus says, leaning forward.

Dave’s smile turns a little embarrassed. “It’s nothing special,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just take it one day at a time, you know? And if I don’t think I can make it a day, I take it an hour at a time. Or a minute. Or a second. Until I feel like I can do it all again.”

Klaus can’t help it—he smiles in return, giving Dave a little thump on the shoulder. “That’s a good way to live,” he says. “Very well adjusted.”

“You think so?”

“Of course I do! Heck, it makes sense to me, your resident idiot, so it must be good.”

Dave laughs. “You’re not an idiot,” he says. “But yeah, that’s how I do things. And I think you can, too, if you want to try it.”

A day at a time… yeah, Klaus could probably do that. He grins, feeling more settled in his skin than he has in a long, long time. It’s nice, to have someone who believes in him. Someone who doesn’t want something that he can’t give, who isn’t here just to ‘help’ him or berate him or who only thinks about him when he’s entertaining and pushes him away when he’s not. Someone who seems to care about him for _him_. He doesn’t want to let this go.

“…Do you want to play a board game in the rec room?” he asks, afraid that he’s jinxed it. But he hasn’t, and the world shifts into place when Dave nods, falling into step beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben!! Dave!! God, I love everyone in this chapter. Also no worries, the kids will start pulling together as a found family in the next chapter. Or at least that's the plan lmfao 👀


End file.
